Re: Bob The Bore And His Immodesty

December 5, 2005

Re: Bob The Bore And His Immodesty
From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com

Dear Colleagues:

On Sunday November 27th the oft brilliant Frank Rich eviscerated Bob Woodward’s books and articles. Rich’s piece was spawned by Woodward’s (mis)conduct in the Wilson/Plame matter. Drawing both on a 1996 piece by Joan Didion in The New Yorker and on his own more recent analysis, Rich made it obvious why critics say Woodward has become an "access journalist," has become a megaphone, or transmission belt, for those in power. Without elaborating the specifics behind this criticism, suffice it to say here that it boils down to the fact that Woodward simply repeats what heroes like George Bush or Dick Cheney have to say, without presenting, or giving only very short shrift to, the other side of matters, to the facts and arguments contrary to the heroes’ (illusionist) positions. It is thus little wonder that the heroes sit down to long interviews with Woodward, and proclaim him a neutral journalist, indeed one of the few supposedly neutral journalists. You would no doubt do the same thing if someone were to take down what you said and repeat it publicly as the gospel.

This author must say that he has tried unsuccessfully to read some of Woodward’s more recent books. I cannot get through them, for reasons that are not entirely clear. Maybe it is that, although they supposedly are books, they read like horrendously long, rather uncritical newspaper articles. Could one really get through an 80,000 word or 100,000 word or 120,000 word or however many word newspaper article? Much less one that is a puff piece for the heroes?

There is a long provenance, stretching back nearly 30 years, to the fact that Woodward’s books are a bore. A bit after his great success with Carl Bernstein in All The President’s Men, Woodward published his third book, called The Brethren (which he co-authored with Scott Armstrong). It was about the Supreme Court. In those days, several friends and I were greatly interested in the Supreme Court. We had imbibed this interest at fancy pants law schools that focused in varying degrees, sometimes extensively, on the work of that Court, as lawyers in the Department of Justice who consorted with Department (and other) lawyers who did work that was presented to the Court, and, in some instances, as writers of work that, after much alteration, was eventually presented to the Court by the Department. So we looked forward to reading The Brethren. Imagine the horror when we -- even we -- found Woodward’s book to be a bore. One of my friends summed it up this way: "When I first started reading The Brethren, I thought it would be of interest to people all across the country. After reading it awhile, I thought it would be of interest only to people inside the Beltway. After reading it some more, I thought it would be of interest only to people located within a block of the Supreme Court."

Woodward, this writer of boring books that in effect heroize the heroes, has, of course, become the paradigmatical Washington media man on the make in the last 30 years. Dull though he seems when one sees him on the tube, he has become wealthy and famous by parlaying articles, books, television appearances, expensive speeches and what not into much money and special treatment at The Post. Pushiness and immodesty are among his traits. The pushiness of he and Bernstein in the Watergate matter is the stuff of legend. Nor was it out of character when one read -- after Mark Felt was revealed to be Deep Throat -- that Woodward, as part of his long term effort to get ahead, while still in the Navy had (rather obnoxiously) pushed himself on Mark Felt, whom he did not know, when both were sitting and waiting in an antechamber outside the White House Situation Room. No surprise there. But what was a surprise was to recently learn the extent to which Woodward has become an immodest megalomaniac. Of course, to be surprised by this, despite having lived for almost 20 years in Washington and knowing what people there are like, is necessarily a sign of stupidity and terminal naivete. So be it. This writer was surprised, perhaps by the degree of megalomania as much as its mere existence.

This author was in Washington over the Thanksgiving holiday, and read a copy of The Washington Post of November 27th. That issue of the paper carried a column by The Post’s ombudsman, Deborah Howell (shouldn’t it be ombudswoman?), on readers’ reactions to a previous column she had written on Woodward’s conduct in the Plame matter. "One of those readers," Howell said, was Woodward, who "thinks that some of his critics have ‘pigeonholed’ him unfairly." Then Howell quoted a comment by Woodward that has to rank as a classic of immodesty, even hubris: "‘For 34 years of reporting for The Post and 13 best-selling books, I have tried to focus on the reader and provide detailed, reliable, fair-minded accounts of the American presidency,’ he said. ‘My books are regularly quoted in newspapers and magazines, on television during the presidential debates, and by Democrats, Republicans, Bush supporters and Bush critics.’"

Wow! Breathtaking, huh? Imagine that: I’ve written 13 best selling books, he brags. My books are regularly quoted in newspapers and magazines, he brags. My books are regularly quoted in presidential debates, he brags. They are quoted by Democrats and Republicans alike, he brags, and by both critics and supporters of Bush, he brags some more. Modesty this isn’t.

All this is, as the Spanish would say, muy interesante, very interesting, very interesting indeed. You see, Woodward grew up in the 1950s and early 1960s in Wheaton, Illinois, a Midwestern town not far from Chicago, where this writer grew up in the 1940s and 1950s. In the Midwest in those days one was taught to be modest. It was one of the virtues (along with honesty and some other desirable, now largely lost, traits). One did not brag by saying I did this, and I did that, and I did the third, and my work was the best, and I am highly thought of by this important person and that one. That kind of stuff was infra dig.

Of course, as one got older and saw the world, or at least the eastern part of the United States, one increasingly realized that modesty, like honesty, has morphed into a crippling professional handicap in the last 30 or 35 years of the 20th Century. One learned that at least in the east -- and one rather thinks more broadly than that -- the palm goes to the boastful and the dishonest. Fortunately for Woodward, though he grew up in the Midwest, he must either have never absorbed the lesson of modesty or has managed to overcome it -- big time. One who grew up in the Midwest in mid-century and absorbed its ethos cannot imagine saying -- cannot imagine saying it even if it is true -- that I have written 13 best selling books, my books are regularly quoted in newspapers and magazines, my books are regularly quoted on television during presidential debates. Modesty would forbid it. Although for Woodward it didn’t. Woodward, that fortunate soul, has managed to replace modesty with megalomania. Or maybe he never had modesty and luckily managed to build up megalomania?*

*This posting represents the personal views of Lawrence R. Velvel. If you wish to respond to this email/blog, please email your response to me at velvel@mslaw.edu. Your response may be posted on the blog if you have no objection; please tell me if you do object.