# Left-Leaning Dopers: who is a better investigative journalist, you or Bob Woodward? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 29, 2015, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124 "2015-05-29T15:18:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/61 "2015-05-29T18:38:13Z")
Are you going to come up with a relevant analogy? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/62 "2015-05-29T18:40:30Z")
Y’know what? I’ll say it. Bush lied. He definitely, without a doubt, lied. The question is not whether he lied, but only about the form of the lie. False things were certainly said. If he did not believe those false things which he repeated, then he lied. If, on the other hand, he did believe those false things, then that means that he was exercising no control at all over the portion of the federal government that he was supposed to be presiding over, and that he allowed people with the authority to speak in his name to use his name to say things that they knew were false. And he must also bear responsibility for that. This is similar, in my mind, to the statement that Ron Paul published hateful racist screeds in his newsletter. Whether he knew about them or not, he had a responsibility to know about them, and so he bears responsibility for what was said. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/63 "2015-05-29T18:48:00Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > 1. One can be wrong and not be lying That’s true. A person can be too stupid to know what the truth is. So it’s possible that Bush wasn’t lying. It’s possible that Bush is just really stupid. Personally, however, I don’t believe it. I don’t think it’s possible for Bush to have said so many things which were “technically true” unless he knew exactly where the line was. He knew what was true and what was lies and he carefully walked along the line between them. A person who was stupid couldn’t have managed to lie so adroitly. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/64 "2015-05-29T18:48:13Z")
I’m amused that Woodward is considered “a highly respected investigative reporter.” What he is is a very famous investigative reporter who isn’t an obvious right-wing hack. If OP sincerely wants to debate the question “Did Bush lie?” what difference does Woodward’s hackery make? Why not review primary evidence? I ask OP to comment on the Joe Wilson - Valerie Plame affair. Surely that’s very relevant to the question of Bush Administration prevarication and obfuscation. (If OP’s underlying point is that Dick Cheney and other top officials lied but that GWB himself was just a stooge, I’d go along.) I would concede that Obama’s failure to negotiate a new SOFA agreeement with Iraq was likely a mistake (though the knowledge needed to make that determination is far above the paygrade of 99% of Dopers) but to compare that mistake with the Mistaken War against Gog and Magog and its ignorant ideological Creative Destruction aftermath is much too laughable for ordinary contempt. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/65 "2015-05-29T18:47:54Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Y’know what? I’ll say it. Bush lied. He definitely, without a doubt, lied. The question is not whether he lied, but only about the form of the lie. False things were certainly said. If he did not believe those false things which he repeated, then he lied. If, on the other hand, he did believe those false things, then that means that he was exercising no control at all over the portion of the federal government that he was supposed to be presiding over, and that he allowed people with the authority to speak in his name to use his name to say things that they knew were false. And he must also bear responsibility for that. > > This is similar, in my mind, to the statement that Ron Paul published hateful racist screeds in his newsletter. Whether he knew about them or not, he had a responsibility to know about them, and so he bears responsibility for what was said. Bush’s power is great. So strong is the desire you have to attach the word to him, you’re willing to do it if he didn’t actually lie, but was wrong. I agree that he is responsible either way, but it seems that you’re looser with the truth than even Bush. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/66 "2015-05-29T18:50:06Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > That’s true. A person can be too stupid to know what the truth is. > > So it’s possible that Bush wasn’t lying. It’s possible that Bush is just really stupid. > > Personally, however, I don’t believe it. I don’t think it’s possible for Bush to have said so many things which were “technically true” unless he knew exactly where the line was. He knew what was true and what was lies and he carefully walked along the line between them. A person who was stupid couldn’t have managed to lie so adroitly. So he lied because he was too smart. Hmm. I’d say that just because he’s smarter than John Kerry (did better at school) that doesn’t make him all that smart. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/67 "2015-05-29T18:57:08Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > If OP sincerely wants to debate the question “Did Bush lie?” what difference does Woodward’s hackery make? Why not review primary evidence? The difference is that Woodward knows what he’s doing. He is not right-wing partisan or Bush lover. THAT is a narrative fabricated to discredit his assessment. It matters because—and I’m going to go out on a limb here—that Woodward knows who to talk to, what to look up, and has better access to people and resources than people here. It matters because he is more trustworthy and less of a partisan than those in this very thread who are still happily (not to mention astonishingly and humorously) sticking to the fantasy that Bush lied. Do you really think that Woodward did not hear and take into account every argument made by people on the Board? Please. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/68 "2015-05-29T18:59:38Z")
I think he was paid to appear on Fox. So, still nothing to offer us about what his key points are and how he arrived at them? Nothing? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/69 "2015-05-29T18:59:52Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Are we going to continue responding to questions with other questions? Is your definition of perjury and lying broad enough to include “If I think a reasonable person SHOULD have come to another conclusion, but you didn’t, you have lied or committed perjury?” I think you have your answer. And you certainly should not be at all surprised. **ElvisL1ves** is Number One on these boards when it comes to a particular metric I’ve mentioned in another forum several times. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/70 "2015-05-29T19:00:30Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Let’s say I am called as a witness in a trial about a man who robbed a bank. As it happened, last year I was on the street when I saw someone who was 5’3", 250 lbs, with bright red hair run out of Wells Fargo carrying a bag with a dollar sign on it. > > So I’m called to testify about what I saw. The defendant matches the description perfectly, and when asked by the prosecutor, I say, “That’s him! That’s the man I saw.” > > Then the defense attorney comes up and says, “But aren’t you aware that my client as a twin brother? And that at the time of the crime, my client was undergoing extensive DNA analysis that conclusively proves that he was at the Georgetown University Medical Center, 10 miles from the bank, at the exact moment you said you saw him downtown?” > > Clearly, my testimony was incorrect. Would you say I have committed perjury? > > If you repeated my statement to the prosecutor 1,000 times while posting on a message board – “That’s him! That’s the man I saw.” – would the number of times it is repeated then make me guilty of perjury? But that’s not what happened. There were numerous people in 2003 saying that Iraq didn’t have current WMD programs. The Bush administration was certainly aware of what these people were saying and they had evidence that showed they were wrong. So the equivalent in your analogy would be if you said you did know there was a twin brother but you also knew that the defendant was in fact the bank robber and that the DNA test was a forgery. And then after the police arrested the twin brother and the Georgetown University staff based on your testimony and you were asked to produce the evidence of their guilt, you admitted, “Well, actually I don’t have any evidence. I just guessed which brother I saw and based the rest of my testimony on the assumption that I had guessed right. But it wasn’t perjury because it was my honest belief based on me believing I had guessed right.” ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/71 "2015-05-29T19:00:44Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Are you going to come up with a relevant analogy? Have you ever watched “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/72 "2015-05-29T19:01:13Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > I think he was paid to appear on Fox. > > So, still nothing to offer us about what his key points are and how he arrived at them? Nothing? No, not nothing. And if you read the transcript provided you would realize that. Sigh. Then again, probably not. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/73 "2015-05-29T19:03:49Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > So he lied because he was too smart. Hmm. I’d say that just because he’s smarter than John Kerry (did better at school) that doesn’t make him all that smart. 😉 No, I said he wasn’t stupid. That doesn’t mean he was particularly smart either. He did after all order the invasion to go forward. In some corner of his brain he must have been aware that the invasion was going to expose that he had been wrong. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/74 "2015-05-29T19:05:12Z")
Hunh, I would have thought the bigger issue in the reality-based community would be whether or not there was a legitimate justification for the invasion of Iraq. If not, whether or not Bush lied about such a non-existent justification, and whatever Bob Woodward may have to say about it, would seem irrelevant. Of course, I am wrong about many things and no doubt this is one of them. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/75 "2015-05-29T19:06:43Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > No, not nothing. And if you read the transcript provided you would realize that. Only his own name and his assertion, which you constantly repeat with far more keystrokes than it would take to make a quick summary for us. > [@](#): > > Sigh. Indeed. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/76 "2015-05-29T19:08:35Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Have you ever watched “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” Then that would be a No. You could have just said so. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/77 "2015-05-29T19:13:26Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But that’s not what happened. > > There were numerous people in 2003 saying that Iraq didn’t have current WMD programs. The Bush administration was certainly aware of what these people were saying and they had evidence that showed they were wrong. > > So the equivalent in your analogy would be if you said you did know there was a twin brother but you also knew that the defendant was in fact the bank robber and that the DNA test was a forgery. > > And then after the police arrested the twin brother and the Georgetown University staff based on your testimony and you were asked to produce the evidence of their guilt, you admitted, “Well, actually I don’t have any evidence. I just guessed which brother I saw and based the rest of my testimony on the assumption that I had guessed right. But it wasn’t perjury because it was my honest belief based on me believing I had guessed right.” The fact is that there was intelligence that was in contradiction. That’s the nature of intelligence. It’s almost always imperfect. It’s really easy in hindsight to point and say, “See, I told you so.” And just to clarify things, the case Bush made was: 1. Saddam is a murdering thug who kills and tortures his own people in grotesque ways. 2. He used WMD in the past. And we know that the amount he used didn’t account for all of them. 3. He was an enemy of the U.S., and the world. Please refer to the video at the bottom of [this link](http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/207458/)that has Dems making the case. 4. Al Qaeda had demonstrated the will, and means to kill thousands of Americans on their own soil. And everyone believed another attack was imminent. 5. The belief was that AQ would love to get their hands on WMDs/dirty bomb and use it within the U.S. The fear was that Saddam, with Iraq hurting for money, would gladly sell them one. 6. To avoid that scenario, we should act—quickly and decisively. 7. Taking action would be a simple affair…a couple of weeks, and we would be viewed as liberators. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/78 "2015-05-29T19:15:44Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > It matters because—and I’m going to go out on a limb here—that Woodward knows who to talk to, what to look up, and has better access to people and resources than people here. It’s funny because that was the same theory offered in 2003 about why we should believe what Bush was saying. Sure, there was plenty of public evidence he was wrong. But he said he had better access to people and resources than the people who were saying he was wrong did. It turns out Bush was wrong in 2003, although there’s an open question about whether or not he knew he was wrong (the “was he a liar or a fool?” debate). And I suspect very strongly it will turn out that Woodward is wrong in 2015, although again there’ll be an open question about whether or not he was aware of it. I’ll even jump ahead and post my personal opinion now. While, as I’ve said, I think Bush was a liar, I think Woodward’s a fool. I think he’s a second-rate reporter who lucked into one big story and has been trying to live up to an undeserved reputation as a first-rate investigator ever since. His desire to produce big stories combined with a lack of the talent needed to get those stories makes him easy to manipulate. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/79 "2015-05-29T19:21:20Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > The fact is that there was intelligence that was in contradiction. That’s the nature of intelligence. Especially when you fabricate it. > [@](#): > > 1. He used WMD in the past. And we know that the amount he used didn’t account for all of them. We still had the receipt. > [@](#): > > 1. Al Qaeda had demonstrated the will, and means to kill thousands of Americans on their own soil. And everyone believed another attack was imminent. That might have meant something if Saddam had had jack shit to do with them. But even Bush dropped that lie long before the war. > [@](#): > > 1. The belief was that AQ would love to get their hands on WMDs/dirty bomb and use it within the U.S. The fear was that Saddam, with Iraq hurting for money, would gladly sell them one. Known lie. > [@](#): > > 1. Taking action would be a simple affair…a couple of weeks, and we would be viewed as liberators. Anyone who said otherwise got fired - remember Gen. Shinseki’s courageous and truthful testimony? That subject gets into the related one of lying to oneself. You’re leaving out the Drones of Death and the mushroom clouds and the aluminum tubes and the Nigerien yellowcake and the bioweapons lab truck lies, and all the other ones Powell made on Bush’s behalf. Why? > [@](#): > > ElvisL1ves is Number One on these boards when it comes to a particular metric I’ve mentioned in another forum several times. If you can’t bring yourself to be direct, how about a link? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2015, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124/80 "2015-05-29T19:24:25Z")
I know I shouldn’t be shocked, but I still remain a little shocked that a decade after the fact and two thousand threads later, a bunch of people still don’t understand the actual claims about the Bush Administration lying. The criticism was _not_ that Bush knew there were no WMDs but said there were. The criticisms were that: (1) Bush Administration officials claimed to know where the WMDs were, which they obviously did not (e.g., “It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are.”); (2) officials claimed that the intelligence was more definitive than it was (e.g., “There is **no doubt** that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction” (emphasis added); and (3) officials continued to disseminate and rely on intelligence they knew to be discredited (see curveball, yellow cake, aluminum tubes, bio-weapon labs, etc. etc.). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/left-leaning-dopers-who-is-a-better-investigative-journalist-you-or-bob-woodward/721124.md?page=5)