Deep Throats

I RECENTLY TOLD my friend Avery Corman, the author of Kramer Versus Kramer and Oh God, that I was finally working on my first novel. "It's really hard writing fiction," I said. "You have to make everything up."

"Oh, come on, Paul, you've been making up stuff your whole life."

"Yeah, but that was journalism."

So I was prepared to believe that Deep Throat—the secret source of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their investigation of the Watergate break-in—was actually a composite of several sources, invented for the sake of dramatic effect. In any case, that code name was a seminal point in the pornographication of news.

On NPR, commentator Daniel Schorr referred to it as "recycling the title of a movie." He didn't mention that it was a porn movie. Deep Throat has become such a mainstream reference that you don't even have to know that the Linda Lovelace character's clitoris was embedded deep in her throat, so that performing fellatio on a man was her only way of achieving orgasm.

I was also prepared to believe that Woodward only imagined that he snuck into CIA chief William Casey's hospital room and obtained exclusive deathbed confessions.

But Woodward doesn't play that game no more. Or does he?

According to Prof. Mark Hanley of Truman State University in Kirksville, MO, "Woodward's book isn't history. It's a book by an investigative reporter... who knows what will make his book interesting."

History or not, it's revealing how his on-the-record interviews have instigated a mini-goldmine of ass-covering lies.

The New York Times reported that "Secretary of State Colin Powell disputed Woodward's account...He said that... he had an excellent relationship with Vice President Dick Cheney, and that he did not recall referring to officials at the Pentagon loyal to Cheney as the 'Gestapo office.'" Who among us would be unable to recall uttering such an epithet? Indeed, Powell later apologized for it.

Donald Rumsfeld—referring to the impending attack on Iraq—said he didn't remember assuring Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar, "You can take that to the bank." Then Woodward produced a transcript of the taped interview, and there it was.

Appearing together before 9/11 commission members—in private and not under oath—Bush and Cheney inspired several editorial cartoons showing Cheney as a ventriloquist and Bush as his dummy; one caption stated, "No wonder Cheney talks out of the side of his mouth." My inside source, Green Door, tells me that Cheney was asked, "Did you inform Prince Bandar, 'Saddam is toast'?" To which Bush-dummy responded, "No, he said, 'Saddam likes toast.'"

Woodward's previous book—Bush at War, about the attack on Afghanistan—was favorable to George W. Bush, which is why Bush requested that he write a book about his entry into the Iraq war, granted him permission to interview White House officials and instructed them to cooperate.

Referring to Plan of Attack, Larry King asked Woodward, "Did they expect a more favorable book?"

"I think they expected a more favorable war," he replied.

In Against All Enemies, Richard Clarke writes: "Just before going to the meeting [in 1998 with Bill Clinton], I read a CIA report from a source in Afghanistan that bin Laden and his top staff were planning a meeting on August 20 to review the results of their attacks and plan the next wave. Terrorist coordinators from outside Afghanistan had been summoned back for the session. As we sat down in the Cabinet Room, I slipped the report to George Tenet, who was sitting next to me. On it, I penned, 'You thinking what I'm thinking?' He passed it back with a note on it, 'You better believe I am.'

"We had both come to the conclusion that this report meant we had the opportunity…to get bin Laden and his top deputies, if the President would agree to a strike now during the white-hot 'Monica' scandal press coverage... The President asked National Security Advisor Sandy Berger to coordinate all of the moving parts necessary for a military response, tentatively planned for August 20, six days later....'Listen, retaliating for these attacks is all well and good, but we gotta get rid of these guys once and for all,' Clinton said, looking seriously over his half glasses at Tenet...'You understand what I'm telling you?'

"All of this was taking place against the backdrop of the continuing Monica scandal. Like most of his advisors, I was beyond mad that the President had not shown enough discretion or self-control, although from what I knew of Presidential history, marital infidelity had also been a problem for several of his illustrious predecessors. I was…almost incredulous that the bitterness of Clinton's enemies knew no bounds, that they intended to hurt not just Clinton but the country by turning the President's personal problem into a global, public circus for their own political ends. Now I feared that the timing of the President's interrogation about the scandal, August 17, would get in the way of our hitting the al Qaeda meeting.

"It did not. Clinton made clear that we were to give him our best national security advice, without regard to his personal problems. 'Do you all recommend that we strike on the 20th? Fine. Do not give me political advice or personal advice about the timing. That's my problem'... Ironically, Clinton was blamed for a 'Wag the Dog' strategy in 1998 dealing with the real threat from al Qaeda, but no one labeled Bush's 2003 war on Iraq as a 'Wag the Dog' move even though the 'crisis' was manufactured and Bush political advisor Karl Rove was telling Republicans to 'run on the war.'"

Poor, naive Monica Lewinsky. The Starr Report disclosed her fantasy about being together with Clinton more often when he was out of office. She quoted him as saying, "I might be alone in three years." In that same section of the report, she quoted Clinton as saying, "Well, what are we doing to do when I'm 75 and I have to pee 25 times a day?" And it must have been embarrassing for Clinton to hear the tape that Linda Tripp made, in which Monica told her what she had said to him on the phone: "I love you, Butthead." Fortunately, he didn't respond, "I love you, Beavis."

Clarke wrote, "The American public's reaction to the U.S. retaliation...was about as adverse as we could have imagined. According to the media and many in Congress, Clinton had launched a military strike to divert attention from the Monica scandal...Our response to two deadly terrorist attacks [on the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya] was an attempt to wipe out al Qaeda leadership, yet it quickly became grist for the right-wing talk radio mill and part of the get Clinton campaign. That reaction made it more difficult to get approval for follow-up attacks on al Qaeda."

Who could have predicted that Monica Lewinsky, who had merely been performing oral sex on Bill Clinton while Yasser Arafat was waiting in the Rose Garden for their appointment, would years later be considered as ultimately responsible for the 9/11 attacks and the unrelated invasion of Iraq?