From Sunday’s NYT:
BOB WOODWARD has yet to write a how-to guide like "The Seven Secrets to Secret Sources" or "Interview Styles of the Great and Powerful," but a few tips are now available thanks to the Pentagon's release of transcripts of his interviews with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
I guess if Woodward were to write such a guide, #1 would be, “For your key source, come up with a cutesy, easily memorable nickname, preferably derived from porno, and don’t tell anyone who it is until the guy’s dead. Especially not your partner’s son.”
I actually once met Linda Lovelace when she gave a speech at Brandeis (after she'd become an anti-porn activist), and I really wanted to ask her how she felt about the title of her film being used in connection with Watergate. But unfortunately chickened out, and I guess now I'll never get my chance.
Posted by Stephen Silver at April 26, 2004 07:31 PMI remember the Linda Lovelace appearance, though I'm not sure whether it happened while I was at the 'Deis or if I heard about it before or after the fact. I was also strangely amused by the Slate piece's ref to Nixon as "America's last anti-Semitic president" - never thought of that before, and it seems impossible to verify whether it's true or not.
Posted by: Joe at April 27, 2004 01:56 PM