Bob Woodward has every reason to put George "Gulag" Bush's interests ahead of his readers', his newspaper's and the public's interests - they feed him and make him wealthy. But, as my spouse is fond of saying - "If you lay down with pigs, you get up smelling like them." Woodward has wallowed in the Bush pen (and trough) for too long.

If the Plame leak was an organized one, the White House agents are savvy enough to put their leaks out carefully and to let each other know to which reporters the beans have been spilled so it doesn't look like an organized attempt - imagine if Matt Cooper had the same information leaked to him by 5 different staffers. It would look like an attempt to discredit someone. Woodward is not even a reporter, as his editor admits - he's just the White House stenographer. He wasn't expected by the White House to rush out and write an article about Valerie Plame like the others were. But he could have confirmed a tip for a Walter Pincus or another reporter, if asked, because of his connections.

There's a manure smell about the whole thing. The WP should dump Woodward and let him go take Scott McClellan's place.

We should not forget that he betrayed Deep Throat from the beginning -- Mark Felt wanted no acknowledgment at all that there was an inside source about Watergate. But in order to tell a good story when he was writing about the whole affair, Woodward revealed that in fact he did have an inside source. Woodward's job number one is, and always has been, getting himself the best story by whatever means necessary. If he thought that giving up his Plame source would get him the inside track to more book contracts and more famous stories, it's hard to doubt he'd do it in a heartbeat.

From what we know so far, nothing rings true here. For example:

Woodward testified that his source "casually" mentioned that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.

Yet once this story broke, his explanantion to the press for why he never came forward - while the grand jury investigation was going on - was that he wanted to protect his source and didn't want to be put in the bind of Cooper and Miller.

Hello? A source's "casual" comment is not anywhere close to information given by sources on the condition of anonymity, as was the case with both Cooper and Miller.

Woodward also said, under oath, that he mentioned this to Pincus in passing (literally), an assertion Pincus says he doesn't remember, and certainly would have had it been so.

These two facts from Woodard's deposition give support to Libby's assertion that Plame's CIA position was common knowledge among the press. Ergo, Libby didn't out Plame, only repeated what was already out there.

So why would Woodward put himself in both legal and ethical jeopardy with this testimony to carry water for this administration? Why the risk?

Judging from his comments on many different television broadcasts in which hosts have treated him like "God's gift to journalism," I believe that Bob Woodward is a super-opportunist.

He didn't want anything to undermine the chances of peddling his new book. He is much too cozy with the current administration to be considered any longer as a reputable, trustworthy journalist. It's too bad; we need as many of those as we can get these days.

Mr. Woodward is so Access Addicted that he's lost both his reason and his credibility.

It's too Faustian, Bob. You'll wake up one morning and there'll be no reflection in the mirror.

I am so sad to see one of the dogged heroes of my youth become a poodle. One's skin crawls.

Why all this animus against Mr. Fitzgerald? Until now, I mean, what's it to you anyway? But now we know that your cosy little insider relationship was threatened.

I think this bestseller-writing should be done outside of the newspaper. It screams conflict of interest. It stinks, Bob -- it's covered in black fur with a white stripe. I think you must resign from the Post. Too murky by far.

I just don't believe Woodward's claim that he didn't 'tell' Downie

about his info.

It's too convenient. It allows the Post to claim its reporting on the Plame case was not influenced by Woodward's compromised status. Instinct tells me Woodward and Downie mutually agreed to keep the Post in the dark.

The Post should dump both Downie and Woodward.

It was Salon, more or less, that laid out the 'case' against Judith Miller. The Times has reached a conclusion on the episode. Miller is not with the Times. Having a journalist wrapped around a story, a story as big as the genesis of the Iraq war, is not a good situation. Reporters aren't supposed to become the story. Miller was, well, a little too imbedded in the Iraq story.

Now Woodward joins this group. I have a huge problem with what Woodward does as a writer. He claims to have incredible numbers of inside sources, so he writes intimate political books that seem to convey information that no one would normally piece together. It doesn't always seem completely credible. On balance, should we have media superstars who get some kind of monopoly grant? Isn't that what Bush gave Woodward? Woodward got a lot of access to write a book about Clinton. What's left, crumbs for some guy from the Mid America Time Picayune?

Maybe journos should band together and insist that access should be relatively equal. OK, if nothing can be done to prevent some journos from cutting deals with the powerful, at least point out how this clouds the judgments. Access comes at a price. If access is equal, there's no advantage, no bargaining. It's hard to say why journos don't have more of an attitude, after all this. Clearly there is a lot of corporate pressure.

The model to me is someone who goes to press conferences, likes the press, engages with the press. Powerful people have little contact with ordinary folks. Journos are connected to that world. With Bush, journos are in some kind of compartment. Bush seems to act like his policies have almost a divine inspiration. None of this explains why there is so little serious reporting, from Iraq to the last campaign. Read Jack Germond's books, I guess.

Newspapers are in trouble because of technology. Their ad revenues are shrinking. But newspapers have content. When ads shift to Google, they are shifting, in essence, to a 'shopper', an online yellow pages. There isn't any content, except links say, back to newspapers. Google gets the content, and steals the ad revenues, if you want to take the cynical view.

I don't know if Salon rises to the level of disciplined journalism on an onging basis. I don't know if the top newspapers can transfer to an internet strategy, make money, and have great reporting.

A lot of 'models', financial and journalistic, seem to be breaking down. There should be a way to make some money (not a lot) with very incisive reporting, distributed over the web. Hopefully this will include local news reporting. The problem is that so much of news is basically a 'pool' story. Congress debated X and Y. No one will likely find an insight others missed. If that is true, how many reporters need to cover it? But, when you look at how the total process works, from rigged districts to where the money comes from, that big story is very complex and hard to explain. But unless people understand the 'big' stories, nothing changes.

That's the other problem with Woodward. He's too inside. You'll never get the reform point of view from a guy like Woodward.