On Watergate, or, on the Iraq war III

Dear Editor:

The Washington Post needs to get over itself. As I write it is several days after the identity of the anonymous source who helped you achieve your Big Moment three decades ago was revealed, and we learned who the person actually was that you named after the title of a certain pornographic movie in order to sell papers. Yet you are still running articles on it, with two in the Style section aside from allusions elsewhere (Style, June 3).

Now that we have the memoir of the wife of the then-executive editor to assure us how great it all was, I suppose we can look forward to “exclusive” interviews with the secretaries and chauffeurs of the principal actors in the matter, photo spreads of their pets in KidsPost with captions hinting anthropomorphically at what they think of it all, and so on.

Trouble is, while you may have helped bring down one corrupt President, you insist on looking the other way regarding the present one, for example refusing to call him to account in a straightforward fashion on the lies about WMD as an excuse to begin what you call the “conflict in Iraq.” You even support the war itself.

So forgive me if I decline to indulge in your nostalgia.

Sincerely,

(6/3/05)

Back to contents