Bob Woodward, courtier journalist par excellence and faithful servant of the ruling political class, laments the fact that Edward Snowden didn’t come to him with his revelations, saying “I wish he had come to me instead of others, particularly The Guardian… I would have said to him ‘let’s not reveal who you are. Let’s make you a protected source and give me time with this data and let’s sort it out and present it in a coherent way.'”

Ah, yes, “present it in a coherent way” which is Woodward-speak for running to the White House immediately to check with them as to what should be published and then putting out a book giving ‘both sides of the story’ full of anonymous quotes from ‘well-placed sources’ that will make him a lot of money.

Woodward does not seem to realize that Snowden knew that keeping his identity secret was not only almost impossible but would lessen the impact of what he did, since the focus then would be on who the leaker was and not the leaks themselves. He also just does not seem to get, though Snowden has explained his reasoning so clearly and so carefully, why Snowden not only bypassed people like him but practically the entire US mainstream media and carefully picked the people to whom he wanted to hand the documents.

It seems like Woodward thinks of himself as a courageous journalist, which reveals a sad form of self-delusion. He looks like he wants to regain his glory days of Watergate, with Snowden being his new Deep Throat, and he cannot understand why Snowden would not want to work with such an eminence as himself.

While I am on the topic, the Electronic Freedom Frontier has published a list all in one place for easy retrieval all the documents (with links to each) that Snowden released, along with the dates and medium of publication.

There you go, Bob, you can now look at all of them and present it in a ‘coherent’ way, all the while dreaming about how you coulda had class, you coulda been a contender, you coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what you are, with a one-way ticket to Palookaville, because of all the dives you took so that you could have a cozy relationship with high government officials.