It has been a special night on Twitter for those
of us who take a perverse interest in the way that ideologically
aligned journalists and politicos will pack-attack critics of a
sitting American president. Seems that Washington Post
investigative-journalism legend Bob Woodward crossed a bridge too
far when, in talking about reaction to his
narrative-debunking Feb. 22 piece pinning the origination of
the sequester directly on a White House that had vociferously
denied paternity, has now gone on
to dish on a “senior White House official” (later identified
as White House Economic Council Director Gene Sperling) who “yelled
at me for about a half hour” about the op-ed, and warned that “I
think you will regret staking out that claim.”

Sperling’s “threat” (if you can call it that) ranks a bit low on
the things-to-be-worried-about totem pole, and Woodward is hardly
an infallible source (here’s my 2006 column
comparing him to Judith Miller), but the reaction tonight from
the leftosphere has been something to behold. A sampling:

Josh
Marshall, TPM:

Who goes birther first, Scalia or Woodward?

David
Plouffe, recently of the White House:

Watching Woodward last 2 days is like imagining my idol Mike
Schmidt facing live pitching again. Perfection gained once is
rarely repeated.

Katrina
vanden Heuvel, The Nation:

Smart @thenation interns
young folks have no idea who Woodward is but dc establishment
freaked about his critique of WH sequester.

Neera
Tanden, Center for American Progress:

My amateur advice: stop cooperating with Woodward in the first
place.

Jason
Linkins, Huffington Post:

I think Woodward will find people will stop yelling at him the
very minute he decides to stop sucking so much at his job.

Dan
Froomkin, Center for Accountability Journalism:

Telling egotist Woodward “I think you will regret staking out
that claim” isn’t a threat; it’s just not realistic.

Matthew
Yglesias, Slate:

Woodward’s managed to make me suspect Nixon got a raw deal.

My February cover piece: “‘The Truth’
Hurts: How the fact-checking press gives the president a
pass.”