Much has been, and will continue to be made, about Woodward’s claim that the White House “threatened” him.
I was raised in a household where Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were near holy figures: endless crusaders for truth who started down the beast and brought order back to the galaxy (I also had a very Star Wars heavy childhood).
As evidence comes out (like the Woodward email that Andrew Sullivan just published) that shows that Woodward is, well, lying through his teeth, it is just making Woodward look bad.
I don’t think that there can be a denial that this constant narrative about the WH “threatening” people (& the know ludicrous notion that they had Breitbart killed) is a simple play of too many white, male conservative’s fear of the Black Other. Black man is running for office? Well of course the New Black Panther Party is intimidating white voters at the candidate’s request. WH is trying to pass a healthcare reform. The scary Black Man wants to kill grandma. WH wants to address the orgy of gun violence in this country (that disproportionately affects young men of color)? The Black Man is trying to disarm you so that he can put you in FEMA concentration camps.
That a man like Woodward, a man who stared down real abuse of power in the person of Richard Milhous Nixon, would trade on this cultural bias, this demagoguery, to sell more books/newspapers/public appearances is sickening.
I think that Woodward is certainly going to regret that he picked this fight. Because there is no way he comes out look like anything other than a dried up bitter old hack.
And its a shame.
I agree with your assessment of Woodward’s recent antics. I see them as a marketing strategy that is sure to (continue to) backfire. I do, however, challenge the notion – one that seems (in this post) to be a wholesale characterization of those who disagree with (or, simply, don’t like) Obama on policy issues as but old, white men trembling in fear at the thought (and the reality) of a Blank man occupying the nation’s highest office (though, that is a sentiment shared by some such people) as overwhelming evidence for your (otherwise) astute interpretation of recent events.
Perhaps I am slightly less biased by my mutual disdain for both parties; however, to ignore the reality that many people perceive this Administration’s actions as threatening (correctly or incorrectly) based on deeply-held beliefs or values (regardless of whether or not either of us agrees with these positions), and to categorically and/or implicitly insist that race is the constant, unrelenting factor in their objections to his policies, it seems to me, is a similar form of dehumanization that I find by many pundits on the right.
While many pundits have been guilty of the accusations you level, at the grassroots level, with everyday people (particularly within the Tea Party phenomenon), my experience has been that the threat felt is to their economic well-being as a result of what are, essentially (and, for many complex reasons) un- or under-funded mandates (particularly when these burdens are shifted to the states, as we have seen recently, with Medicaid). The right and left both turn these hardworking people into pawns, upon whom they prey mercilessly for political gain, from what I can tell, at least.
Your writing has gotten much more concise and is always engaging; just make sure not to sacrifice nuance for brevity. Keep up the writing, though!
*Black