* White House spokesman cites “factual disagreement”
* Woodward famed for insider reporting on Washington
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON, Feb 28 (Reuters) – Journalist Bob Woodward has
uncovered scandals and shed a withering light on secretive
policy decisions for decades, so when he expressed outrage about
an emailed crossfire with a senior White House aide, Washington
sat up and took notice.
But a closer examination of his dust-up with White House
economic adviser Gene Sperling may undercut Woodward even as it
sheds a light on hardball tactics used by President Barack
Obama’s team to try to rein in reporters.
A complaint by Woodward that the White House had basically
threatened him by saying he would regret some of his reporting
about a budget deal with congressional Republicans looked
overplayed when a transcript of the email exchange came to
light.
“I know you may not believe this, but as a friend, I think
you will regret staking out that claim,” Sperling wrote to
Woodward, the Washington Post journalist whose reporting with
Carl Bernstein during the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s
helped contribute to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
The email chain, leaked to Politico, showed Sperling
contesting Woodward’s public accusation that Obama had gone back
on a 2011 promise not to seek to raise taxes in a new
deficit-reduction deal.
Sperling’s tone was not aggressive.
“I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation
today,” wrote Sperling, a bespectacled economic analyst who
heads Obama’s National Economic Council.
Neither Sperling nor Woodward responded to emailed requests
for comment.
Far from a reputation for nastiness, the traditional
complaint from journalists about Sperling is that he would give
lengthy, boring briefings on the economy during former President
Bill Clinton’s administration.
“I think you cannot read those emails and come away with the
impression that Gene was threatening anybody,” said White House
spokesman Jay Carney, himself a former White House correspondent
for Time magazine.
“Look, I have enormous respect for the work that Bob
Woodward is famous for,” he added. “I think a lot of us probably
got into the business in part because we read ‘All the
President’s Men’ or saw the movie or both. But you know, we had
a factual disagreement that I think we stand by.”
The author of a series of insider books featuring interviews
with top Washington figures that provide blow-by-blow accounts
of major political decisions, Woodward had already drawn the ire
of the White House recently.
He wrote that a series of budget cuts likely to take effect
on Friday – known as sequestration – was originally Obama’s
idea, a fact the White House at first disputed then finally
acknowledged.
His battle with Sperling was emblematic of similar run-ins
that many reporters have daily with a White House team that
fiercely defends Obama and his policy positions.
National Journal reporter Ron Fournier, for example, wrote
on Thursday that a White House official he would not name had
become so abusive that he asked the official to stop emailing
him.
Obama supporters were eager to try to undermine Woodward’s
hard-won reputation.
Former Obama White House adviser David Plouffe tweeted that
Woodward was like retired baseball slugger Mike Schmidt facing
live pitching again. Woodward is 69.
Sperling did not escape some ribbing either, with one wag
creating a Twitter profile called @ToughGuyGene.
