If information is true, if it can be verified, and if it’s really important, the newspaper needs to be willing to take the risk associated with using unidentified sources.
BOB WOODWARDLawyers didn’t seriously get involved in the Watergate stories until quite late, when we realized we were on to something.
More Bob Woodward Quotes
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Finally, the president added, ‘The American people are idealists, but they also want their leaders to be realistic…’
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Nixon’s grand mistake was his failure to understand that Americans are forgiving, and if he had admitted error early and apologized to the country, he would have escaped.
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I have written things that Republicans and Democrats and all kinds of figures have either hated or felt very uncomfortable about. Because in doing these long projects and books, you get close to the bone. And they’re not calling me up and asking me for dinner.
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The source known as Deep Throat provided a kind of road map through the scandal. His one consistent message was that the Watergate burglary was just the tip of the iceberg.
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I think the problem in the Republican Party is really not money. I think they’ve got lots of it. I think it is theory of the case – why are we here, what is our message, how to connect to the real world.
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I recently read some of the transcripts of Nixon’s Watergate tapes, and they spent hours trying to figure out who was leaking and providing information to Carl and myself.
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When you hear in the tape recordings Nixon’s own voice saying, We have to stonewall, We have to lie to the Grand Jury, We have to pay burglars a million dollars, it’s all too clear the horror of what went on.
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I’m not going to name some of my colleagues who are very well-known for their television presentation, but they wouldn’t know new information or how to report a story if it came up and bit them.
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Nixon had some large achievements in foreign affairs. They will be remembered. But a president probably gets remembered for one thing, and Watergate will head the Nixon list, I suspect.
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Not a season passes without new disclosures showing Nixon’s numerous attempts at criminal use of his presidential powers and in fact the scorn he held for the rule of law.
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If there’s one thing that Trump does, he never quits.
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They need to review this secret world. We have an incredibly powerful government that gets on automatic pilot.
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[Clinton] believes that the Washington press corps is so out of touch that it is absolutely inconceivable that reporters will understand the issues that people are really dealing with in their lives.
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Some newspapers have a hands-off policy on favored politicians. But it’s generally very small newspapers or local TV stations.
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I deal with first-hand sources. And give the people, even John Sununu, the opportunity to respond to what I’ve been told by first-hand sources.
BOB WOODWARD