The prominent Washington journalist, who busted open the Watergate scandal of President Richard Nixon, has surfaced in the headlines as being in a bitter dispute with the White House about how he has been covering the sequester story. Today, Feb. 28, 2013, the Chicago Tribune has reported, Bob Woodward: Journalist tangles with White House official. Bob Woodward says a senior White House official warned him he would "regret" publishing a story which challenges the White House's account of how the idea for automatic spending cuts originated.
In interviews with Politico and CNN Bob Woodward said that when he informed the White House he was writing a story which is critical of the White House's handling of a debate over the origin of the cuts, known as sequestration, the official reacted with anger. Woodward told Politico the aide "yelled at me for about a half hour," and then followed up the tirade with an email. The official is said to have written Woodward, "I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today. You're focusing on a few specific trees that give a very wrong impression of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. ... I think you will regret staking out that claim."
ABC has reported on this scandal, White House Denies Threatening Bob Woodward. The White House has adamantly denied that Gene Sperling threatened Bob Woodward, and has added that the president’s top adviser on economic policy was “incredibly respectful” in his emails to the well known veteran journalist. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has told reporters, “I think you cannot read those emails and come away with the impression that Gene was threatening anybody.” Woodward has accused Sperling of threatening him over an op-ed he has published in the Washington Post which has alleged President Obama is “moving the goalposts” by insisting Republicans agree to new tax revenue as part of any deal to avoid the so-called sequester.
