OPINION:
Bob Woodward’s anti-Trump book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” hit the media spotlight just 60 days prior to the midterm congressional elections. Mr. Woodward’s publisher is Simon & Schuster, an affiliate subsidiary of CBS Corp. and its news division, which vilifies and selectively reports on the president. In this context, there is no coincidence to be found in the timing of the Woodward book release.
Mr. Woodward’s usual use of anonymous sources and uncited claims and accusations against the president is a methodology incessantly used by anti-Trump authors and op-ed writers of the past two years. Mr. Woodward does, however, cite White House officials Jim Mattis and John Kelly. Yet each denies having made disparaging comments as Mr. Woodward continues to proselytize.
Before Mr. Woodward, there were the usual anti-Trump books by Mike Wolff and Omarosa Manigault Newman. We then had to listen to charges, based upon hearsay, made by a pornography queen, her mouthpiece lawyer and a Playboy type. And now there is this Woodward book, followed by the op-ed published in The New York Times and written by, again, an anonymous source.
As senior White House officials deny having written such scurrilous accounts of the president, it’s despicable of The New York Times to rely on such underhanded tactics.
Considering Mr. Woodward’s motives and The Times’ lack of journalistic integrity on the subject of Donald Trump, it is clear these attacks will continue as long as Mr. Trump is in office. Should that come as a surprise to anyone?
EARL BEAL
Terre Haute, Indiana
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