Axelrod CALLS OUT Woodward On White House Email

[Segami]

RW Tool Woodward Backtracks while Axelrod mops floor with him.....



Former White House adviser and current MSNBC analyst David Axelrod on Friday pressed Bob Woodward on whether he really felt threatened by Obama administration official Gene Sperling. "The headline in the Washington Post, your newspaper, was Woodward says that he was threatened by the White House," Axelrod said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."


"But I never have. Come on. You know that. No," Woodward said.(The headline on the Washington Post actually read: "Woodward vs. White House: Washington at its weirdest.&quot "They got the impression, from what you said, that you felt you were being threatened," Axelrod continued. "And you just read to the Politico one line from that email. And when the full emails came out they were as cordial as can be. His email was cordial, and your response was cordial. So if you felt threatened, why didn't you say to Gene, don't threaten me?



"No, I did not feel threatened," Woodward responded. "What I have said, David, and come on, you are making, putting words in my mouth. I said I don't think this is the way to operate. And you and I have had many discussions. You've never said to me, Oh, you're going to regret doing that, am I correct?"



"Yes, but this was a specific discussion about a specific point you had raised," Axelrod said. "It seemed like Gene was, in that email, certainly was very, very polite in the way that he pushed back on that. I'm not putting words in your mouth, Bob. It's your newspaper that said you said you were threatened."





http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/axelrod-presses-woodward-on-whether-he-felt-threatened?ref=fpa

[closeupready]

1. And Woodward's nose just grew six inches.

People are dying every day, Woodward - go away, and take your bullshit excuses with you, and let people hear about important things that matter, not your silliness.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

3. He's a tired old fool who stopped being relevant about thirty years ago (nt)

[dreamnightwind]

2. Nice job, Axelrod

Pointing out that it was his own paper, nice touch, hard to argue that he was misrepresented. I found this whole Woodward being threatened thing to be bizarre.

Woodward has always been a tool. A most useful tool during Watergate for the Hooverites in the FBI who decided to get rid of Nixon. A journalist? Not so much. Just a tool.

[truebluegreen]

4. OT but I've heard a little before

about Woodward and Hooverites and Nixon. Can you provide a link or something to more info on that?

Thnx

[dreamnightwind]

8. Here you go

I'm not any kind of expert on this history, others here no doubt have spent a lot of time learning about it, maybe they'll chime in. What's posted on wikipedia (not necessary reliable) fits with what I have heard before, at least as far as it goes:

This is Woodward's Deep Throat:

"On July 1, 1971, Felt was promoted by Hoover to Deputy Associate Director, assisting Associate Director Clyde A. Tolson.[16] Hoover's right-hand man for decades, Tolson was in failing health and no longer able to attend to his duties. Richard Gid Powers wrote that Hoover installed Felt to rein in William C. Sullivan's domestic spying operations, as Sullivan had been engaged in secret unofficial work for the White House. In his memoir, Felt quoted Hoover as having said, "I need someone who can control Sullivan. I think you know he has been getting out of hand."

...

"Hoover died in his sleep and was found on the morning of May 2, 1972. Tolson was nominally in charge until the next day when Nixon appointed L. Patrick Gray III as Acting FBI Director. Tolson submitted his resignation, which Gray accepted. Felt took Tolson's post as Associate Director, the number-two job in the Bureau.[20] Felt served as an honorary pallbearer at Hoover's funeral.[21]"

more at link

Felt (a local guy to me, oddly enough) admitted he was Woodward's source before he died. So the story I know is that the Hooverite Felt (and probably others he was allied with) brought down the rogue White House.

I would see OldDem2012's post on this, too, that is interesting. I am unfamiliar with the claims made in that post, I'm not discounting them though.

[OldDem2012]

6. Actually, Woodward has been a right-wing operative for quite some time....

....which goes back to his education at Yale and selection for one of their secret societies. Yale was prime recruiting ground for the CIA going back to their early days as the OSS during WWII. After leaving Yale he joined the Navy and was assigned as an intelligence/communications officer aboard the Navy's National Emergency Command Post Afloat, the USS Wright, and carried a Top Secret Crypto security clearance. His next assignment was aboard the USS Fox as the ship's Communication Officer with a crew that contained a number of intelligence personnel. His next stop was the Pentagon where he served as a briefing officer to the White House, a position held only by those officers believed to be on the fast track.

Following his stint as a briefer Woodward supposedly left the Navy for a career in journalism. I say supposedly because it has been strongly rumored that he never left the intelligence branch of the Navy, but continued to work as a deep-cover operative reporting to senior levels of the Navy to include Admiral Moorer who ran a spy ring that infiltrated the National Security Council while Nixon was president ( http://www.watergate.com/stories/obit.asp ). If any group was responsible for getting rid of Nixon, it was the US Military. US Army General Al Haig was Nixon's Chief-of-Staff during Nixon's last year in office and he reported directly to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Think about that for a moment. Now think about this...while I was in the Navy a friend of mine who was a Navy translator with extremely high-level clearances told me that his station received a message at the moment Haig became the White House CoS to disregard all orders from the Commander-in-Chief. The US was essentially under military control for Nixon's last year. Most other countries call that a coup d'etat.

So, back to Woodward....after a mere six months with a local newspaper outside Washington, DC, he was hired by the Washington Post, and almost immediately began breaking the Watergate story. Tell me how that happens without heavy-duty sources and contacts? How is it possible that Woodward always seemed to be in the right place at the right time over the last few decades to include being present to report CIA Director Robert Casey's last words in the hospital?

[Boomerproud]

5. Woodward IS a tool, you all are correct

This whole non-story makes me want to

[DearHeart]

7. Wow! Why is anyone focusing on this old has-been??

Don't we have enough going on without this pulling attention?