Sally Quinn decided that the world needed another fawning biography of Ben Bradlee, and it’s clear from the excerpt in New York magazine that Jeff Himmelman was the guy to do it:
I recited the things Sally had told me to say—we can take it slow; I can do some preliminary work and see if it turns into anything; if there’s no book there, then we won’t force it—and when I was through, he looked at me blankly.
In the post-coital glow of their initial lovemaking, Bradlee gave Himmelman some boxes of old Post memos, and Himmelman found that Bradlee wasn’t sure that all the Post Watergate reporting was 100% accurate–he had a “residual fear” that some of the details were made up. This precipitated a Woodward hissy fit:
On Sunday night, at 10:45, another e-mail came in, this one from Sally. Bob had come over to their house, and he was agitated. He wanted to be there the next morning when I came to look for the tape.
At 8:30 on Monday morning I called over to N Street. Sally picked up and told me what had happened. When she and Ben had gotten home from dinner the night before, there had been an urgent message from Bob on their machine. She called him back, and he ended up coming over and staying for nearly two hours. As soon as he arrived, it was clear that he was deeply worried.
The way Bob saw it, the publication of those quotations from Ben would undermine his own legacy, Ben’s legacy, and the legacy of the Post on Watergate. I asked Sally what to expect when I got there, and she said I should expect for Bob to make a loyalty argument—to him, to Ben, to the paper.
To make a long, long, long story short, judging from Woodward’s reaction (not Himmelman’s reporting), the parts of his and Bernstein’s Watergate reporting that sound a little too smooth probably are. What’s really notable is the way that town venerates acts as if the last time some real journalism was committed by reporters at the Post was almost 40 years ago.
Raven
The Walter Reed hospital case grew from a WAPO series.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
OT: xkcd.
Wag
Come on. Watergate was a third rate break-in reported by a couple nobodies from the City Desk. You can’t expect that type of work from political reporters. There would be no gimme for swinging on mcCains tire swing.
Ken
I was thinking the really notable part was the way Woodward and Quinn were planning a coverup of Watergate…
Punchy
Havent a clue what anything in this post means. Ben Bradlee was who/what? Sally Quinn does what?
mistermix
@Raven: You’re right, that statement was gross hyperbole on my part. I reworded it.
Baud
@mistermix: Hyperbole on the Internet. I’m shocked.
snarkyspice
@Punchy:
Try Google.
mistermix
@Punchy: Ben Bradlee was the editor of the Post during the Watergate years. Sally Quinn is his wife. She is also the queen of the DC media village.
Keith G
No one is an angel. Not one single human. I am highly certain that most reporters cut a corner or two at least once on a complex story.
But if W & B made up Mitchell’s quote re Graham’s titties, I will be sad.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Any actual journalism done by the Kaplan Daily is by accident rather than design. The entire editorial structure is designed to squash innovation and proaction. The fact that Dana Priest’s work managed to squiggle out over the last 5-7 years is well, who else has done anything remotely like that for the (com)Post?
MattF
Woodward chronicles the Village view of events, so anything he writes is subject to change without notice. E.g., that 2001 book about Alan Greenspan entitled “Maestro: Greenspan’s Fed and the American Boom”– well, that was then. And, of course, all the books about the Bushies. So, yeah, there’s certainly a legacy in his writing, though not the one he thinks.
c u n d gulag
The problem with The Village in DC, is that the most important thing there, is the reputations of those in already The Village.
And once you’ve worked your way to the status level of a (the late) Broder, Quinn, or Woodward, you should no longer be questioned.
About anything!
And that what should really be questioned, is the person doing the questioning.
Any questions?
Villago Delenda Est
The glamorization of Woodward and Bernstein was the beginning of the end of journalism in Washington, DC.
Think about it…it was turned into a movie. That starred…wait for it…THE superstar of the 70’s…Robert Redford.
After that, everyone wanted to get the ultimate scoop that would immortalize them on the silver screen with some superstar Hollywood type playing them, the intrepid journalist, who brought down a President or two.
Somehow, the take of Dick on Woodward and Bernstein seems to be much more satisfying to me than the All The President’s Men take, in light of how they turned out after Watergate. Particularly after The Final Days, which read more like a novel than reporting, and featured Woodward’s new reporting gimmick, the results of pensieve episodes.
rlrr
OT: Casting Game of Thrones with the 2012 Political Personalities
Villago Delenda Est
@Punchy:
These kids nowadays.
I was in high school when Watergate happened, and believe me, this was HUGE stuff, at least in mine. All the sudden, everyone wanted to be into journalism and bring down hidden criminal asshats like Richard Milhous Nixon. It was common knowledge who the major players were, especially after All The President’s Men came out, first as the book, then as the movie.
“Who was Deep Throat?” was as big a question as “Who shot JR?”. Of course, that’s another reference back to when dinosaurs ruled the earth…
Freddie deBoer
In the post-coital glow of their initial lovemaking
Hee!
janeform
@Villago Delenda Est: Absa-efin-lutely. I was 11 and loved watching Senator Sam’s hearings.
Valdivia
@rlrr:
lost my coffee all over my laptop but totally worth it.
handsmile
As much as I despise Kaplan Test Prep Daily, it continues to employ Dana Priest, the finest, most invaluable investigative reporter working for an American newspaper. (Another employee, columnist Harold Meyerson, deserves greater recognition too, imo.)
In addition to her series exposing gross ineptitude at the Walter Reed Medical Center (as alluded to by Raven above #1) for which she won a 2008 Pulitzer Prize, she was also awarded a Pulitzer and Polk Award in 2006 for her revelations on CIA secret prisons.
Her most recent extensive series “Top Secret America,” investigating the proliferation and privatization of the national security state since September 11, appeared in the pages of Kaplan Test Prep in 2010. It was published last year as a separate book and is essential reading on the subject. Here is a link to a PBS Frontline interview with Priest on the series:
pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/iraq-war-on-terror/topsecretamerica/dana-priest-top-secret-america-is-h…
Her work has discomfited a great number of powerful Washington interests, both government and corporate. Frankly, I cannot comprehend how she continues to hold a job at Pravda on the Potomac. She is perhaps the final riposte to the ultimate degradation of the Village media. And Bob Woodward, crown prince of that Versailles, is nothing more than a knave when compared to Priest’s principled commitment.
Villago Delenda Est
Oh, yeah, nice Boss reference, mistermix :)
karen marie
No, the notable part is Woodward’s concern lest we discover that journalists were no more above mixing bullshit into their stories 40 years ago than they are now.
Quaker in a Basement
@Ken: Yes!