Sunday, August 28, 2005

All the President's Men

I picked the book up today, a special 30th year commemorative edition Borders had on display for eager readers like me. Oddly enough, I can't remember having actually read this book before, although I did read the Final Days several years ago. I wasn't all that interested when Mark Felt came forward several months ago but for some reason, now, the original version of the story itself seems more interesting to me.

Ah, yes, when there was something approaching real journalisming in this country. I'm just glad Bob Woodward isn't still alive to see what butt-kissers the media's become.

I was struck, however, by some comments by the authors in the first chapter. In it, Bernstein (with his long-hair and college-drop out credentials) is viewed by Woodward as a kind of hippie journalist, the type of person Woodward despises, while Woodward is seen by Bernstein, and apparently by other members of the Wash Post staff as a smug kind of establishment guy. So maybe it isn't surprising how Woodward turned out after all.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I also picked up All the President's Men about a month ago. It's hard to imagine anyone working that hard for a story today. By contrast I recall a piece by Steno Sue a year ago that was so poorly fact-checked that a paragraph confusing Iran with Iraq was left in the print edition.

Woodward's a tough guy to figure out. His book on the build up to the Iraq War reads more like a Bush propaganda piece, though you also get the feel that the decision to invade Iraq was made very early on.