Plan of a Hack

I've spent way too much time now listening to Bob Woodward try to explain why he used his Watergate credibility to convince people that a legal imbroglio he was intimately involved in was nothing more than "gossip" even as he failed to admit he was one of the gossipers. Then Len Downie got to go to school on Bill Keller and try to bail his paper out of the Official White House Stenographic Pool. Neither was particularly successful.

Woodward's cast-iron refusal to act like a journalist and name a source he has now testified about most assuredly and permanently bestows upon him Chief Stenographer status. His mea culpa was even more embarrassing than Judy Miller's (at least the Times named Libby as Miller's source upon her release from jail -- who thought that sordid affair would ever be invidiously compared to anything?) The Post's up-and-comer status as the "paper of record" to replace the NYT was dealt a serious blow as they refused to buck their star reporter's desire to play White House suck-up. Woodward verily laughed at any suggestion that he bore some professional obligation to the Post that might compromise his prized, self-serving "access."

But enough Bob bashing for the moment -- we have other fish to fry. What did we learn about Woodward's source from this most recent round of excuse mongering? Well we learned a heap more from Len Downie than we did Bobby, that's for sure.

1. Woodward's source is a man. Downie was quite specific that "he" did not want to be publicly identified at this time (and Downie apparently knows).

That lets out Matalin, Condi and Hughes (apparently).

2. Bush violated his own rule not to "discuss an ongoing investigation" (Scott McClellan ought to be lovin' life right about now) and released a statement saying that neither he, Andy Card, Dan Bartlett, Colin Powell, George Tenet nor John McLaughlin were responsible. Since in all likelihood the identity of Woodward's source will become known sooner rather than later, we are going to give a group of known liars the benefit of the doubt for the moment.

From the NYT:

Mr. Cheney did not join the parade of denials. A spokeswoman said he would have no comment on a continuing investigation. Several other officials could not be reached for comment.

3. The source was interviewed by Woodward for his book, Plan of Attack. Now while he may well have interviewed people he never mentioned, we'll assume for the moment that if he had a casual, friendly relationship with the person he would most certainly want to flatter them with inclusion, because that's the kind of hard-hitting, edgy journalist he is.

Not mentioned: Bolton, Fleitz, Wurmser, Hannah.

Mentioned: Hadley, Cheney, Fleischer.

Okay, I'm knocking Fleischer out because he's cited in the indictment, a good indication that he came in and played straight with Fitzgerald from the start. Whoever this person is he either didn't tell Fitzgerald about the Woodward interlude, or hasn't been questioned by Fitzgerald yet.

But let's telescope it down a bit further.

A few days before the Libby indictment was announced, Woodward evidently went to his editors and said "um, Houston, I think we have a problem," and mentioned he might be needing to do a story about his own involvement.

Oh the laughs they must've had in the Post newsroom over that one.

This was around the same time that Karl Rove was doing one of those furious Wylie Coyote backpeddle things trying to get out of the way of the anvil that was poised to drop on his head.

And the night before, on Thursday, October 27, Michael Isikoff asked a question of Woodward on Larry King:

ISIKOFF: I talked to a source at the White House late this afternoon who told me that Bob is going to have a bombshell in tomorrow's paper identifying the Mr. X source who is behind the whole thing. So, I don't know, maybe this is Bob's opportunity.

But Woodward put everyone's suspicions to rest:

WOODWARD: I wish I did have a bombshell. I don't even have a firecracker. I'm sorry. In fact, I mean this tells you something about the atmosphere here. I got a call from somebody in the CIA saying he got a call from the best "New York Times" reporter on this saying exactly that I supposedly had a bombshell.

Protecting your sources is one thing. Nobody put a gun to your head and told you to lie your face off in the process, Bob.

Evidently the whole NYT Washington crew had spent the day trying to track down the rumor that Steve Clemons was also privy to -- namely that Fred Fleitz was going to be the subject of a Woodward article

Now Michael Isikoff has a history of being a Rove water carrier, and it's possible the Fleitz story got floated as a red herring. But Fitzgerald probably isn't as easily distracted by bright lights and shiny objects as Isikoff is. It's entirely possible -- and I'm guessing probable -- that in order to hold Fitzgerald off at least for a while, Rove had to actually give up somebody quite real. I doubt any of his lame Adam Levine excuses gave Fitzgerald "pause," but it would definitely suit Rove's agenda to have Libby be the first guy out there on the limb. It probably also served the White House's agenda too -- they might have even made some sort of sacrifice play to evade the mortal blow of losing Rove and Libby on the same day.

Which puts Cheney in the possible category and places pretty solid odds on Hadley.

Hadley was Deputy National Security Advisor at the time, and putatively the information clearing house for leaks. After Karl Rove spoke with Matt Cooper, he reported back to Hadley about it with the now-infamous email on July 11. The Washington Post described him as the "eyes and ears" for Cheney at the NSC, having served under him as assistant secretary of defense during Bush 41.

It was also Hadley's job to coordinate Tenet's apology for the "16 words" he didn't put in Bush's speech, and perhaps more significantly, was a member of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG). He was also reportedly running around at one point and telling people he thought he was going to be indicted.

According to the Times article, Hadley has appeared before the grand jury, but if so, he must've conveniently left out this early conversation with Bobby or Fitzgerald would most certainly have hauled him in sooner. In which case I wouldn't want to be in his shoes right now, because having listened to himself mis-quoted on the news all day and called "Inspector Clouseau," Patrick Fitzgerald is probably in quite the mood.

Second possible scenario -- Scooter gets indicted. He hasn't got much hope of mounting a defense, but what hope he does have could entail calling reporters with whom he spoke and didn't talk smack about Wilson, or establishing that he wasn't the first to talk to reporters (though how this helps him is unclear -- nothing in Fitzgerald's case relies upon this). He calls Woodward and says "listen, man, I just want to tell you -- this is coming down the path." Woodward knows he's going to get the Fitzgerald nod, phones his other source and warns them, and they come forward. Problem with this is, Woodward was already talking to his editors before Scooter was indicted. So I'll put this in the "unlikely" column.

Third possible scenario -- and this one is the wild card. With all the extra stuff in the indictment that didn't need to be there, Fitzgerald may have been telegraphing to someone that he had the dirt on them, and that's what provoked the sudden attack of candor and/or memory retrieval. Fitzgerald showed his appreciation for Libby's lies by coming down on him with 30 years' worth of charges and a demand for hard time. It could've scared the living bejesus out of some potential indictees who suddenly decided they really didn't want to play spin the bottle with the Special Counsel just now.

Which could mean Cheney. But it is totally out of character for Cheney to back down and give Fitz (or anyone else) anything. And again it doesn't factor in that Woodward talked to his editors before the indictment. Which leads back to Hadley or Cheney in the Rove sacrifice play.

One thing is for certain -- we will probably know sooner rather than later who Woodward's source is. With his lawyer crowing so much about this new finding, Libby will no doubt put any such information in his pleadings, and my guess is that the White House is going to want to get all this stuff aired and out of the way before the State of the Union speech in January. So I think this is going to be a very, very festive holiday season for all of us.

And to everyone who was crying "it's over, Fitzgerald's done" after the Libby indictment, I'd like to say...Merry Fitzmas, y'all...