Washington Post ombudsman lets Woodward off the hook

I hate to even use the word "ombudsman" to describe the person who wrote this article in Sunday's Washington Post. An ombudsman is someone who writes as a kind of independent watch dog on what the newspaper is doing, then gives their opinion of whether the paper was right or wrong.

In this case, we got a whopping 20 paragraphs of background on the story. And a big 2 paragraphs at the end with the "non-budsman's" milquetoast opinion on the entire fiasco.

And what is her opinion?

Woodward really ought to have an editor.

Yes, that's it. She repeats Woodward's outright lies about why he didn't come clean earlier. She doesn't even do the analysis a child could do as to why Woodward's excuse doesn't hold water. She simply, once again, repeats Woodward's absurd excuse that he didn't come clean with his editor because he was afraid Patrick Fitzgerald would subpoena him. Which is fascinating, since Patrick Fitzgerald wasn't even appointed Special Prosecutor until a good six to seven months AFTER Woodward was leaked the info about Valerie Plame.

Let me repeat that, just in case any real journalists are still left at the Washington Post: Bob Woodard's excuse is a lie that a child could unravel.

Woodward says he didn't come clean to his editor in June of 2003 because he was afraid Patrick Fitzgerald would subpoena him.

But Patrick Fitzgerald wasn't even appointed special prosecutor until December of 2003, and Fitzgerald didn't start subpoenaing journalists until May of 2004.

And once Fitzgerald was on the job, Woodward was hardly afraid of going to jail: He OFFERED to go to jail in Judith Miller's place this past July, 2005. Clearly Woodward was no longer afraid of going to jail, so why didn't he tell his editor then? He waited three more months.

So what the fuck is going on at the Washington Post that they expect us to just sit back and listen to this crap over and over again when it's an utter lie?

I started off unsure about how to interpret the Woodward news. He has an amazing past, Watergate and all. But I was admittedly ticked he went public, over and over and over again, knocking Fitzgerald and claiming the crime was much ado about nothing, only to find out he was a party to the entire scandal.

And make no mistake - the non-budsman and the executive editor of the Post would like you to believe Woodward made only two TV appearances or so where he talked about the Plame case. In fact, Atrios came up with at least seven. This was no errant off-comment by Woodward, or a slip of the lip. The man went on a TV feeding frenzy and mouthed off about a scandal he was a party to. Bob Woodard isn't some freshman journalism student. He knew exactly what he was doing. And just because the man broke Watergate hardly excuses his horrendous behavior thirty-five years later.

But I wanted to give Woodward and the Post the benefit of the doubt. I hoped both would come clean with the truth, and something would be done in a grand way to show that both Woodward and the Post truly understood how seriously they violated our trust.

I was wrong.

Now we have Woodward outright lying about the entire fiasco, the Washington Post's executive editor saying that it's "ridiculous" that the readers should expect Woodward to even be "disciplined," and the Post's non-budsman writing some freshman-in-college essay that suggests Woodward get an editor, when he already has one - it's the guy he didn't tell the truth to, his executive editor, who now isn't that concerned anyway about what Woodward did, let alone the lies he's still giving us. And you wonder why Woodward felt no compunction to tell this man the truth? He's daddy's little girl and he knows it.

At least the New York Times came clean about Judy Miller and did the right thing by calling her on her treachery and firing her ass. The Washington Post finds our outrage "ridiculous," and thinks that if it repeats Woodward's insane story about Fitzgerald enough we'll just accept it as truth.

But we fell for that trick once - the old "tell us a lie enough times and we end up buying it" scam - we're not going to fall for it again.

The Washington Post makes me sick.