Posted on 02/28/2013 7:59:15 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Exclusive: The Woodward, Sperling emails revealed By: Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei February 28, 2013 08:30 AM EST
POLITICO’s “Behind the Curtain” column last night quoted Bob Woodward as saying that a senior White House official has told him in an email he would “regret” questioning White House statements on the origins of sequestration. The official in question is Gene Sperling, economic adviser to the president. The White House has since pushed back, saying the exchange was far more innocuous than Woodward claims.
We have obtained, exclusively, the exchange. Here it is:
From Gene Sperling to Bob Woodward on Feb. 22, 2013
Bob:
I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today. My bad. I do understand your problems with a couple of our statements in the fall — but feel on the other hand that you focus on a few specific trees that gives a very wrong perception of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here.
But I do truly believe you should rethink your comment about saying saying that Potus asking for revenues is moving the goal post. I know you may not believe this, but as a friend, I think you will regret staking out that claim. The idea that the sequester was to force both sides to go back to try at a big or grand barain with a mix of entitlements and revenues...
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
I hope that both sides kick the crap out of eachother.
Obviously, a fake... cause, I just read a White House statement saying this exchange NEVER happened??
Don’t think either side can kick that hard...
Usually when I hear the phrase “my bad” I’m looking at a youngster.
I think Bob Woodward was trying to re-create himself as a mighty journalitic warrior here.
Which is fine with me, goodness, it’s about time.
EXCEPT.....
.....that email exchange makes a lie out of all Woodward said. Sperling said Woodward would regret “taking the stance” that Obama’s minions created the sequester.
Now I been around politics a bit and that little verbal gem was very much a threat, yes it was. It’s how politicos do....they talke out of both sides of your mouth.
BUT....then Woodward slobbers in the email response “please don’t be mad at me, you never have to apologize to me”....sickening.
I am quite sure the White House released this email exchANGE. aNBYbody thinnks not, I got a bridge to sell....CHEAP!
Gene Sperling is sniveling little punk like The Ploofter. A north east commie who got his start working for Gov Mike Dukakis (Massachusetts) Sperling goes way back. He worked for Bill Clintoooooon too.
Politico is running interference for the administration. Any kind of attack on the White House results in the usual MSM toadies circling the wagons to protect their leader.
Where is 'deep throat' when 'deep throated'.
Its email --> is it possible that someone posted this with Sperling computer and/or password?
So then Sperling admits Obama owns the sequester.
Let’s see.
Sperling yells at Bob Woodward for half and hour, then sends a full page so-called apology telling Woodward to “rethink” his position or he will “regret” it.
But it’s not a threat. Got it.
Nice little career you got there, Bob—be a shame for something bad to happen to it.
Apology for raising their voice is something a female might do...
Not in my experience.
Who writes page-long emails after screaming on the phone for half an hour?
I imagine this kind of threatening posture is nothing new for this White House. (is that what they call the “Chicago way?”) Even IF Woodward is not cowed, or L.Davis, just think how many in the media ARE. This is an atmosphere which exists and therefore, the media is not only in ideological alignment but are otherwise controlled by intimidation. One wonders, “where are a few good men” of integrity willing to break ranks, to speak the truth — and not just when it benefits book sales.
Woodward makes a public claim against the WH, one that throws everyone in a tizzy because of who Woodward is.
After a bit of “controversy”, the e-mail is revealed, and WH innocence is declared - we are supposed to believe it, because the e-mail was “private conversation”.
I aint buying it - Woodward is a used car salesman and we shouldn't buy his old jalopy.
woodard’s reply indicates he was obviously frightened for his life /sarc
Well done Woodard you trolled the media once again for free publicity. You have a book coming out soon?
Bingo.
...you'd think they'd learned their lesson by now...
[...you should rethink your comment...]
No one on the left ever had a problem with his ‘thought process’ when he wrote “All the Presidents Men” but when he scratches their thin skin he becomes a pariah.
Woodward is no fool, their innocuous statement to him really ended...or else.
Woodward is an opportunist. But if this round of publicity seeking results in a wider perception of this administration as the punks and gangsters they are, I’ll take it.
Woodward’s response is obsequious dreck.
TWB
My guess he did and got another abusive earful which is why he decided to go public.
keyboard spew alert
The emails aren’t the story. The alleged threats aren’t the story.
The real story is the reflexive way the media leaped to attack the heretic, before even waiting for any facts to really come out. Even if that heretic is a journalistic legend whom most of them would have fallen over themselves praising a week earlier.
It’s far more frightening that the media’s gut instinct is to defend the White House at all costs than some admin flunkie was trying to bully a reporter.
My cynical mind is reading this kerfuffle as nothing more than the White House and their sycophants in the SRM creating a big nothing burger to divert attention away from other, more serious issues, such as the release of criminal illegal aliens from federal custody.
+1
DING! DING! DING!
We have a winner!
So where are all those like an AF Four Star who a few decades ago stopped at an Air National Guard Base after they’d just crashed on of the first airplanes that went directly from the manufacture to the ANG Wing? After the accident briefing and before boarding his airplane to go back to Langley AFB, VA, he called the Wing Commander aside and quietly said, “You Son-Of-A-Bitch, if you lose another airplane I’m going to come to your house and burn it down...with your wife and kids inside”.
Whoops! Premature denial by the most transparent Administration.
“Who writes page-long emails after screaming on the phone for half an hour?”
Somebody who’s afraid. He’s probably just doing what the Oval Office told him to do.
Also worth emphasizing is the fact that the White House got caught lying about the sequester.
Another thing that galls me is the way Woodward called Sperling in advance of the story’s publication. Why? He wasn’t looking for a comment for the story, he was calling to warn them.
Did he do that with Nixon? Did Dan Rather do that with Bush in the 2004 TANG “fake but accurate” story? Did the National Enquirer do that with Clinton?
No! It’s supposed to be a surprise, a heads-up on a story like this is unethical because it allows the subject to set the spin in advance.
LOL! You know, as often as they "Deny" things, you'd think they wouldn't have such a problem... and yet?
“Apology for raising their voice is something a female might do...”
Why would the woman apologize, when it was clearly your fault she had to raise her voice. Always.
Funny how Mike Allen suddenly ended up with the original email...
Usually they do call to ask for comment, and I believe they did in those cases too.
Not in this case. Asking for comment is to get a quote for the story, and this story was already put to bed...no comment for the story because it’s post-deadline. Maybe for a follow up story, I don’t know.
But I get a bad feeling in my gut about Woodward’s call to Sperling. And the follow up email. And especially Woodward’s reply to the email.
Yup. Pure Alinsky tactics. They jump on the “old man” and say he’s losing his marbles in order to discredit him.
This administration is in it to win it. They have their constituents so wrapped around their fingers, I think if they sent them poisoned Kool-Aid, they’d all drink it right about now.
Sperling doesn’t know how to spell very well does he?
Control freaks that believe that the "recipient" didn't hear the screams the first time.
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