The last two weeks, a handful of people have asked me what I thought of Bob Woodward's Trump tapes. They know I was originally a journalism major at Penn State, and I was hard core on journalistic ethics. You always tell the truth in print, you never give up your sources unless lives are directly and immediately at risk, and so on. In my mind, Spider-Man's classic mantra applies, "With great power comes great responsibility."
I feel that if I had been Woodward, the longest I could have sat on the tapes was the end of March. Too much was at stake. Too many lives in the balance. I would have had too much power to potentially do good in my hands. I'd have felt an overwhelming obligation to tell the American public loudly and clearly that President Trump privately did not believe what he was saying publicly. I would have visited every available media outlet and warned about transmission through the air and the lethality of Covid-19 as at least five times that of a normal flu.
I would have said these things publicly as long and as loud as I could. Book be damned. Election timing be damned. The American public had a right to know so people could protect themselves and plan their lives with maximum information.
That's what I would have done, and it would have been, to me, the only and obvious decision. I could not have even considered delaying for months. The argument can be made that the timing of the tapes' release will have a maximum effect on the election itself. I think that manner of thinking is speculative and besides the point. Saving lives, I believe, takes precedence over maximally influencing the election.
Further, my suspicion is that Carl Bernstein knew what was on those tapes. In most of his CNN appearances these last months, Bernstein's tone has been declarative regarding Trump, and there's been an underlying ominousness. The declarative nature of Bernstein's proclamations, made without reference to new specific evidence, makes me think that his tone originated in part from knowledge he had in his back pocket. If I'm correct and Bernstein knew the Trump interviews' contents, then again I would have considered myself ethically obligated to go public had I been in Bernstein's shoes, even though the tapes were Woodward's private and intellectual property. Saving lives trumps loyalty to Woodward, and we're talking many, many lives.
The Transactional United States
One angle concerning what Woodward did not do is the overarching transactional theme that permeates the United States' failed Covid-19 responses. The president did what he perceived was best for him and his deluded dream of a monarchical multi-generational Trumpfest-in-charge. The GOP, meanwhile, en masse subordinated the public good and saving lives to the calculus of their individual ambitions. Again, framing the pandemic in a transactional manner.
The cloud regarding the Woodward delay is that holding back the tapes in service of the book has the appearance of putting personal cost/benefit analysis ahead of saving lives. So Woodward's delay risks falling under the aegis of transactionalism. I'm sure this seems, to the rest of the world, as another blatant example of the U.S.'s obsession with individuals' material resources (money) and non-material resources (fame, prestige) at the expense of civics (remember that word?) and public goals. "Civics" has become some extinct freakish idea, relegated to the Smithsonian along with The Fonz's leather jacket and stuffed dodos. Something our grandparents knew about in the 50's.
"The Woodward Delay," as I think journalists a hundred years hence will call it, will be remembered as another inexplicable capital-obsessed selfishness during the era of Trump. Exposing the arch-villain only after he's killed everyone is not the best example of "With great power comes great responsibility." Unless your only responsibility is to yourself.
Bob Dietz
September 16, 2020
