Bob Woodward is the most overpraised journalist in modern American history. He’s an “icon” because he took out Richard Nixon. Every book should be titled “Democrats Pounce” because that’s how these books succeed.
Back in October 2006, when Woodward’s Bush-bashing book “State of Denial” came out, NBC’s Tim Russert proclaimed: “Mr. Woodward will be all over the media talking about this book, talking about this issue. You know the Democrats will pounce on it.” Yes, “he’ll be all over the media” and “the Democrats will pounce on it” is pretty much the same thing.
This has become a pattern with Woodward when he’s writing “Democrats pounce” books. The next book, “The War Within,” came out on Sept. 8, 2008.
The trend continued with the anti-Trump books: “Fear” on Sept. 11, 2018; “Rage” on Sept. 15, 2020; and “The Trump Tapes” on Oct. 24, 2022. And now “War” on Oct. 15, 2024. All the networks are sharing Woodward’s usual anonymous sources making wild claims, like former President Donald Trump shared COVID-19 tests with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Pounce!
All the networks loved that, and not so much Woodward’s claim that President Joe Biden told staffers that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a “bad [bleeping] guy.” Vice President Kamala Harris jumped on Woodward’s Trump story and knew her softball interviewers wouldn’t ask a question about the “BFG” tale.
Now, what would happen if Woodward had written a book that went after Biden the way that he has gone after Trump? What if Woodward worked his shifty secretive sources into talking about how they all hid Biden’s cognitive decline from the public? Would all the networks share that? We’ll never know, because Woodward has no interest in upsetting the people who rush out to buy his books.
What if Woodward wrote a book that carried shocking allegations like the ones Josh Boswell has filed for the U.K.’s Daily Mail? The networks have treated those stories like they do not exist. The Daily Mail is not a prestigious Nixon-ruining Democrat rag like The Washington Post.
On Oct. 3, the Boswell scoop was headlined “Kamala Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff ‘forcefully slapped ex-girlfriend for flirting with another man’ in booze-fueled assault after date to star-studded gala.” This claim was set in 2012, before Emhoff began dating Harris. “One of her friends told DailyMail.com that the woman called him immediately after the incident, sobbing in her cab, and described the alleged assault.”
On Oct. 8, Boswell posted another scoop. “Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff faces explosive new allegations from his time at top LA law firm.” He was allegedly “inappropriate” and “misogynistic” at work, according to anonymous former colleagues. They claimed that “he yelled expletives, held a men-only cocktail hour in the office, revoked work perks from women who didn’t flirt with him, and took only young, attractive associates in a limousine to a ball.”
One can respect the decision to avoid a story until it can be confirmed—if it’s ever applied in a bipartisan manner. It isn’t.
No one showed this restraint when women made wild accusations against Supreme Court Justice-to-be Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. Addressing this Emhoff silence, Trump told Ben Shapiro: “If that were me, it would be the greatest story in the last five years.”
You could laugh out loud when they would make the excuse, like Lesley Stahl did about the Hunter Biden laptop: “It can’t be verified.” What they mean is, “We refuse to try and verify that.” They’ll admit, “This has not been confirmed by NBC News” or whatever with Woodward and his anonymous sources/conspirators. But it’s too juicy to wait for confirmation.
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