Bob and Len’s Unhealthy Relationship

Consider some of these quotes from Len Downie regarding Post superstar and Mr. “Who Needs Editors When You’ve Bagged a President?” Bob Woodward in the New York Observer:

• “I don’t think I’ve kept in touch with Bob over the years,” said Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr.

• Asked to explain why he’d been out of touch, Mr. Downie replied, “Because he’s a rich man, who has an entire floor of his house as his office, and he has a staff of his own working for him. He doesn’t come into the office so much. We have to take the initiative to talk to each other.”

• “He adapts the ground rules accordingly,” Mr. Downie said. “I don’t think anyone is fooled with what he’s doing.”

  (Really? How about your very own White House reporter? “I have no clue what he’s working on,” said Jim VandeHei, The Post’s current White House reporter.

  Well, that just about answers how something like this could happen…

  Another great quote from the Observer piece:

  “Bob Woodward’s allegiance is to celebrity,” said an executive at another major publishing house. “In the old days, reporters were like Seymour Hersh, out in the trenches, digging around someone’s garbage. I think of Woodward with his cufflinks on in the cloth dining rooms in Washington. Or in the President’s office. Like he’s one of them.”

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