If you haven’t seen it already, definitely take a moment to check out the debate/exchange we have going on over at TPMCafe Book Club about America’s history with political Islam. Bob Dreyfuss, Steve Clemons, Jane Arraf and John Stuart Blackton are discussing Bob’s new book Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam. It’s a fascinating discussion.

TPM Reader BB is confused …

I confess to be completely bewildered with the ability of this administration to make statements that clearly contradict their actions without being completely laughed off the American and world stage.

Bush says we do not torture, that the scandal at Abu Graib was just a few bad apples, and doesn’t even respond to the many other instances of prisoner abuse (including death) — BUT he WILL veto a bill that bans torture of prisoners. We read articles about one and then articles about the other but most of the time only the columnists are there pointing out the transparent duplicty of it all. Why are elected Dems so silent? Why did it take McCain to make this an issue?

Bush can say these things with a straight face because that’s the kind of guy he is, and the right-wing scream machine will back him in this because that’s who they are — but how the heck does the MSM reduce this complete nonsense to he-said/she-said when it’s really a case of pathological deceit?

Good question.

I just gave another close read to Bob Woodward’s statement about his deposition in the Fitzgerald investigation. And I wanted to go back through the statement, the accompanying Post story and whatever else we might know to think through what, if anything, Woodward might have done wrong.

Let’s start with the first fact. Woodward knew key information about the leak and was probably the first person to receive the leak. And yet this is the first we’re hearing about it, more than two years later.

I can’t see where there’s anything wrong with this. Woodward was told something in a confidential conversation with a source. He didn’t write an article based on it, as Bob Novak did. So I don’t see where he needs to tell the public about the conversation. He could have chosen to write about the leak story itself, using the insight he gained as the target of one of the leaks, as Walter Pincus did. But I don’t think he was under an obligation to do so.

Then there’s the fact that Pat Fitzgerald didn’t know about it until quite recently. I don’t see where this is a problem either. Woodward was maintaining a confidence and I don’t think he had any affirmative obligation or necessarily any right to step forward and tell the investigator what he knew. Whatever you think about Judy Miller, Matt Cooper fought Fitzgerald’s investigation for some time — and I don’t know anyone who thinks Cooper got into any ethical jams in his part of this story. In his case, I think with all the other journalists, they got pulled in when Fitzgerald’s investigation led him to them. None of them just came forward on their own, at least as far as I know.

Where he gets into trouble I think are on two points.

First, he didn’t tell his editor, Len Downie, anything about this. Downie’s legendary predecessor Ben Bradlee told Editor & Publisher today that he doesn’t see anything wrong with that. “I don’t see anything wrong with that. He doesn’t have to disclose every goddamn thing he knows … He’s got his finger in a lot of pies … Woodward never has ‘no involvement’ because he is who he is. He’s always poking around the White House because he’s always writing a book about the White House. So it doesn’t surprise me that he knows a lot about that.”

I really don’t think that cuts it.

This isn’t just any pie. This is a story that has embroiled Washington for more than two years, as much as a media and media ethics story as a legal and national security story. The Post’s chief rival for the status of national political paper of record, The New York Times, has been involved in a debilitating entanglement with the case for more than a year. And one of its most renowned reporters has now, in effect, been fired, in large part, over her messy involvement in this case and her failure to come clean with her editors about the nature of that involvement.

This isn’t just another pie Woodward had his finger in. Given the context and everything that surrounds this case, not telling Downie amounted to concealing it.

My big question is: did Downie really never ask? Seems hard to imagine. The Times asked their reporters. And Woodward would have been a very obvious person to ask.

Second, what he told the public. As I’ve said, Woodward had no obligation to discuss this publicly and in most respects probably no right. But he has been an aggressive critic of the investigation itself, challenging the premise that there was any underlying wrongdoing in this case. By becoming a partisan in the context of the leak case without revealing that he was at the center of it, really a party to it, he wasn’t being honest with his audience. I don’t see much way around that.

Now, his antipathy toward the investigation seems much easier to understand.

These are preliminary impressions. And I’d be eager to hear your views. I had intended to discuss this at a bit more length. But it’s just been brought to my attention that a few minutes ago Howie Kurtz published an article in the Post in which Woodward apologizes to the Post. So I’m going to read that and follow up with more impressions later.

TPM Reader SB responds to my post below …

I agree that under normal circumstances, Woodward would have had no obligation to reveal this info to the public. But the actual circumstances in this case are different. Woodward was about to publish (or had just published) a book purporting to give an accurate picture of the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. The fact that Woodward kept all of this secret under these circumstances just destroys his integrity as a journalist.

Woodward gives a strong impression that the CIA should bear a great deal, if not most, of the blame for the Iraq invasion in his oft repeated interview quoting George Tennet as saying “Slam Dunk” on the issue of WMDs in Iraq. The revelation about Woodward’s secret knowledge destroys Woodward’s credibility in my view because Woodward never did anything to correct the information in his book. The independent CIA investigation of the Iraq/Niger yellowcake story and Tennet’s repeated refusal to sanction the accuracy of the yellowcake story just doesn’t fit with the “Slam Dunk” picture. Now we know that Woodward had early inside information of the smear campaign against Wilson (and possibly the CIA). A credible journalist wouldn’t have kept this information concealed when the information tends to undercut information in the journalist’s just published book.

SB broadens out the picture from Woodward’s public stance about the Fitzgerald investigation, which I note below. I’ll give the matter more thought.

Thank you again to everyone who’s contributed to our Muckraking fundraiser. We’re now at 1306 contributors. And we’re hoping to get to 1500 by the end of the day, which will put us at the half-way point to our goal of 3000.

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So it looks like the November 14th deadline Bill Frist set for a plan to pursue “phase two” of the senate Iraq intel investigation has come and gone. There’s been progress apparently. But no resolution. No plan on looking into what happened in Doug Feith’s office. And apparently no agreement from the majority as to whether the committee will actually be able to interview any of the key people in the administration. Roberts, Frist and Co. are still stonewalling for the White House.

Yglesias on how the Woodward revelation doesn’t help Libby; Didion on Woodward fatal flaw.

The Times story on the Woodward/Post revelation.

And you thought cock fighting was illegal.

Tonight Cheney comes out swinging against critics of White House lies, deceptions and sundry Iraq bamboozlements.

Since I wrote my initial thoughts on the Woodward matter earlier today — what I called “preliminary impressions” — I’ve already revised some of my opinions, in large measure in response to a number of reader emails. I’ll try to do a follow-up on that point later this evening.

But for now I want to share a few thoughts that have occurred to me about this mystery Senior Administration Official (SAO) who came forward to Patrick Fitzgerald.

One thing we learned toward the end of the build-up toward the Libby indictment is that Fitzgerald interviewed or deposed quite a few people in the course of his investigation. The SAO category includes a good number of people. But not that many. Is this someone Fitzgerald had never interviewed or brought before the grand jury? My recollection is that Fitzgerald talked in one fashion or another to most SAOs, maybe the great majority of them.

Whoever Fitzgerald talked to you would certainly think he’d have been sure to ask a question which would force the person being questioned to answer who, if anyone, they’d discussed Plame’s identity with.

“Did you know Plame’s identity?” “Did you discuss Plame’s identity with anyone outside the White House?” etc.

You can probably see where I’m going here. Did this mystery SAO’s testimony contradict earlier testimony provided in the course of the investigation?

Unless Fitzgerald had never spoken to this person, it’s hard to see how that wouldn’t have been the case.

Unless of course it was someone who’d been interviewed in some very cursory manner or perhaps not under oath.

Thoughts?