By LES HIGH

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward is perhaps the preeminent reporter in Washington D.C. today; yet, he keeps his opinions about politics close to vest.

This much he is crystal clear about, however: government secrecy is the biggest threat to democracy.

“Secret government. That’s the thing that will do our democracy in,” he said.

Woodward knows a thing or two about government secrecy. In 1972, he and fellow Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate scandal that led to the downfall of President Richard Nixon.

Woodward told an audience at the Charlotte Museum of History last week that he and Bernstein thought the Watergate conspiracy might go as high as White House Deputy Communications director Jeb Magruder or maybe Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman. Instead, as history now shows, Nixon himself had a major say-so not only in Watergate, but he also used a myriad of resources from the CIA to the IRS to enact revenge on perceived enemies.

Woodward spoke warmly of North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin, who chaired the Senate Watergate investigative committee.

Ervin, Woodward said, was a great defender of the principles of the U.S. constitution and was outraged at the corruption of the White House. “He was a believer in the constitution. It was the core of his being.”

Prior to the Senate investigation, Ervin asked Woodward if he could reveal his sources. Woodward said he could not, and Ervin went on to conduct what Woodward called the “gold standard” of Senate investigative committees.

“When I told him no, that’s as far as it went,” Woodward said. “He said, ‘I perfectly understand that.’ It’s just the opposite of what’s going on today.”

Woodward was 29 when he started working on the Watergate story. Initially, their stories in the Post were universally disbelieved, but the two reporters had the backing of Editor Ben Bradlee and Publisher Katherine Graham, a woman of exceptional character and principle.

“She asked me at lunch one day, ‘When will the truth come out?’” Woodward said. “I told her probably never.”

“Never don’t tell me never,” she retorted.

“Needless to say, I left that lunch a motivated employee. That was not a threat, but a statement of purpose. As journalists, our jobs are to get to the bottom of things, to find out the truth.”

Reflecting on the Nixon tapes, which contained hundreds of hours of secretly taped conversations in the Oval office, Woodward noted that “there was a certain smallness to it. There was rarely a mention of what might be best for the American people.”

Woodward said that the war in Iraq is the “emotional center of what’s going on on earth today.”

Woodward’s book about the war, “Plan of Attack” was actually recommended to reporters by both the Bush and Kerry camps during the 2004 campaign.

Before publishing the book, Woodward sat down with the president to conduct the longest interview – 3-1/2 hours – ever between a journalist and a sitting president.

The decision to invade Iraq was made incrementally over a 16-month period.

There were no constraints on the interview. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a press secretary were there, but rarely interjected.

As Woodward suspected, the interview also gave a better view of who Bush is and how he thinks. In one now famous exchange, Woodward asked the president if he ever consulted with his father before going to war. Bush’s reply was, “I appeal to a higher Father.”

Bush’s religious beliefs are essential to understanding him, Woodward said. “I believe we have a duty to liberate people from tyranny,” Bush told Woodward. In Bush’s last inauguration address, he used the words liberty and freedom 40 times.

Colin Powell, the retired general who was Bush’s Secretary of State at the time, tried to get Bush to consider the consequences of invading a Middle East country with little support from the rest of the world in terms of how it would affect the economy, energy and diplomacy.

Powell cited the Pottery Barn rule, which is “If you break it, you own it.”

Three years later, the situation in Iraq is what it is: for some it has established a footprint of democracy, while for others it has been an unmitigated disaster that has cost tens of thousands of innocent lives in Iraq and the lives of more than 2,000 U.S. soldiers.

Woodward asked the president how he thought history would judge America’s invasion of Iraq 50 or 100 years from now. Bush replied, “I don’t know. We’ll all be dead by then.”
“That’s George Bush,” Woodward said. “He does what he thinks is right and he lets it go.”

During Wednesday night’s talk, Woodward was careful to balance criticism of Bush with “on-the-other-hand” remarks because it is important for reporters to be seen as impartial. For example, Woodward said that even though the war has seriously tarnished Bush’s reputation, Woodward also noted that Harry Truman’s approval rating for the Korean War was only 22 percent and Truman was widely considered incompetent by many Americans. Now, Truman is seen in a positive light, “a genius” president, Woodward said.

“In 10-25-50 years, maybe they’ll be erecting George W. Bush statues all around Bagdad. We just don’t know.”

Woodward fielded several questions. The audience favorite was his take on former president Bill Clinton.

Woodward joked that he asked 500 questions of Bush in his interview because Bush gives such short answers. For Clinton, an interviewer would be lucky to get four questions in during a 3-1/2 hour session.

“He drills you with eye contact,” Woodward said of Clinton. “I’m sitting there in the interview and he’s drinking a Coke. As he lifts his glass to finish it, there, through the four ice cubes in the bottom of the glass, he’s still making eye contact with you.

“It’s like he’s trained himself to use his eyes. It’s piercing. It’s like he wanted to be president since he was 5 and he’s committed every organ in his body to be president, whatever organ that might be.

“He makes you feel like you’re the most the important person in the room. There’s this feeling of focus. It’s gravitational. It’s not surprising the women melted.”

Clinton was focused, articulate and committed. “We’ll never see anyone else like him.” Woodward said.

Responding to another question, Woodward said that the American public should be concerned about the apparent ascendancy of the presidency.

Whether Democrats or Republicans are in control, any time the presidency, the congress and the judiciary are dominated by one party, there can be serious consequences for those not in power.

“There has to be a balance,” Woodward said. “But,” he added, “I think people understand the importance of this.”

Acting as a voice for those without power is one of the responsibilities of the press, and Woodward thinks the press should be more aggressive but not rude.

He is clearly annoyed by the need for immediacy in today’s competing news mediums because a reporter has a responsibility to get the story right.

There is more accountability among the major newspapers than most people think, noting that there’s this “wrath of God” mentality among writers if they don’t do their due diligence, especially on high-profile stories.

The modern media, however, is becoming more and more defined by speed.

On the recent conflict with Iran, Woodward offered no insight into what might happen, other than saying that the U.S. does not have the number of troops needed to fight a second war.

At the end of the evening, Woodward talked about the 2008 presidential race.

Woodward believes the Republicans will nominate Dick Cheney for president and the Democrats Hillary Clinton.

“He’s the DNA of the Republican Party, plus they like to nominate old war horses,” he said. “Look at Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush Sr. and Bob Dole.”

Clinton, meanwhile, is the ultimate political player who will do what it takes to get the nomination.

“Cheney and Clinton,” Woodward concluded. “It’s reason enough to stay alive for 2008.”