|
Tuesday, 15 April, 2008 5:07 PM
Bob Woodward says Americans Should
Be Concerned with 'Secret Government'
Photo
credit: www.guilford.edu
Bob
Woodward is best known for uncovering the Watergate Scandal along
with Carl Bernstein.
DETROIT --
Government secrecy is what American’s should be afraid of the
most, award-winning journalist and author, Bob Woodward, told a
crowded auditorium Thursday at Wayne State University.
Woodward—famous
for his journalistic impact during the Watergate scandal said, “The
thing we should worry about; above war, the economy, healthcare
and the environment...is secret government.” That is what Watergate
was about, he said, and “too much of the Bush Administration
has been about secret government.”
The job of the press
is to find out what is really going on, Woodward told the audience
during his wide-ranging speech on the press and the presidency during
the Wayne State’s Forum on Contemporary Issues in Society (FOCIS)
program.
“It is the job of
the press to do independent and aggressive examination on what is
really happening,” Woodward said. He praised the Detroit Free
Press for recently doing so in the city of Detroit, regarding the
text message scandal between Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former
Chief of staff Christine Beatty.
Our government is very
capable of putting out stories, giving out documents, and answering
questions, Woodward said, “They just don’t do it.”
Regarding the invasions
in Iraq in 2003 Woodward said, “Journalist should have been
more aggressive and skeptical when it comes to the war”
The evidence regarding
the invasions in Iraq were much skimpier than generally believed,
Woodward said. “I have not found anything that went on during
the Nixon administration during the Bush administration, but you
just don’t know, but I keep digging and keep talking to people
and keep trying.”
By allowing these secret
governments to remain secret and out of the light of the public,
“Democracies die in darkness.” Woodward said, “Presidents
come and go, governments come and go, but if they operate outside
of the daylight – we’re not going to know and we’re
going to lose the democracy that we have.”
|
