Back in June, I wrote a New Republic piece about Bob Woodward’s new book on the Obama White House. At the time, I reported that Woodward’s new project was causing agita inside the West Wing.
Now, Woodward is giving the White House reason to worry: his Washington Post scoop on Stanley McChrystal’s 66-page Afghanistan report. I’ve been covering the Obama White House’s relationship with the press since the campaign, and reporters have told me repeatedly that Obama’s message control is as tight, or tighter, than the famously secretive Bush White House. One thing reporters routinely mention is Obama distaste for “process” stories that explain how and why decisions are made. But Woodward–perhaps more than any reporter working in Washington–is the master of process: he can locate and document the internal power struggles that ultimately come to define every administration. The McChrystal Report is the first major national security leak of this nascent presidency, one of many more to follow…
Read my TNR piece, Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack
And here’s my TNR piece on Obama’s thorny relationship with the campaign press corp, End of the Affair
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