Bob Woodward blew himself up in the middle of a crowded investigation yesterday by revealing that he may have been the first beneficiary of the White House leak campaign to out CIA agent Valerie Plame. Like New York Times reporter Judy Miller, who chose the slow oxidation route for her role in the investigation rather than Woodward’s more dramatic explosion, the Watergate legend refused to discuss details of his situation with his colleagues at the paper.

Other interested observers are covering the story in more detail and with more enthusiasm than I can muster; you’ll find links to those sites at the end of this column. What interests and depresses me is the glimpse Woodward’s revelations offer into the incestuous goings-on at the top of the Washington political and journalistic food chain.

For those not up to speed on the story, the short course is that Woodward spent two hours Monday chatting with Plame prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald about a June, 2003, conversation Woodward had with an unnamed White House* official, during which the official told Woodward that Plame worked for the CIA. The official isn’t Karl Rove or indicted Cheney aide Scooter Libby, and the conversation took place perhaps a week before Libby outed Plame to New York Times reporter Judy Miller. Fitzgerald knew about the conversation because the official approached him with the information earlier this month, and the official then partially waived Woodward’s confidentiality pledge — partially, because he or she agreed that Woodward could talk with Fitzgerald but not the Washington Post’s readers.

One of the features of this case has been what one might call the Theory of Immaculate Information, in which bits of knowledge such as the identity and working circumstances of Valerie Plame just come to be out there. Immaculate information played a role in both Karl Rove’s and Scooter Libby’s defensive leaking campaigns during the investigation, when defenders of the two men claimed that both had learned of Plame’s identity from reporters rather than the other way around. The information was sourceless; it simply existed. Other White House partisans have said much the same since the beginning of the investigation more than two years ago.

It’s bunk, of course: reporters don’t have antennae picking up free-floating information; unless they’re inventing their stories, they get their information from people or documents or some other non-esoteric source. In this instance, we know that the reporters in question — Matt Cooper at Time, Walter Pincus and now Woodward at the Post, Judy Miller at the Times, Bob Novak at the La Brea tarpits, and whoever else is involved — got the information from the White House. But the fact that Rove, Libby and others think the claim is remotely plausible indicates just how thoroughly reporters and the administration are intertwined, and the extent to which reporters are not just gathering information but actively trading it. Although the notion that the identity of a covert CIA agent was being casually bandied about seemed and proved to be absurd, it’s become apparent that the absurdity is only a matter of degree.

Much of the heat Woodward is deservedly taking arises from his decision not to recuse himself from commenting, sometimes savagely, on the details and merits of the investigation despite having been a party to the leaks from the White House. His willingness to do so highlights the degree to which journalists are either willing to abrogate their contract with the public or are unaware of it, and one particular episode highlights one of the reasons why Libby et al felt comfortable with the “reporters made me do it” defense.

On October 27, the day before Fitzgerald handed up the Libby indictments, Woodward got together with Larry King for an evening of entertainment and analysis. Also invited was Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff, who, like Woodward, is very much a part of Washington social and gossip circles. During the course of the conversation, Isikoff precipitated a hugely revealing exchange with Woodward. Duncan Black at Atrios has kindly excerpted the relevant portion of the conversation, and the entire transcript is available here.

KING: We’re in Washington where things are hopping and we’re going to follow up again tomorrow night. We’re going to lead this round with Bob Woodward as we turn to tomorrow.

But, Michael Isikoff whispered to me during the break that he has a key question he’d like to ask Mr. Woodward, so I don’t know what this is about.

ISIKOFF: No, look, this is the biggest mystery in Washington, has been really for two years and now as we come down to the deadline of tomorrow the city is awash with rumors. There’s a new one every 15 minutes and nobody really knows what’s going to happen tomorrow. Nobody knows what Fitzgerald’s got.

I talked to a source at the White House late this afternoon who told me that Bob is going to have a bombshell in tomorrow’s paper identifying the Mr. X source who is behind the whole thing. So, I don’t know, maybe this is Bob’s opportunity.

KING: Come clean.

WOODWARD: I wish I did have a bombshell. I don’t even have a firecracker. I’m sorry. In fact, I mean this tells you something about the atmosphere here. I got a call from somebody in the CIA saying he got a call from the best “New York Times” reporter on this saying exactly that I supposedly had a bombshell.

The Theory of Immaculate Information would have it that Isikoff’s source at the White House and Woodward’s CIA source’s source at the New York Times simply plucked the information — which, it’s now apparent, concerned Woodward’s mystery source — from the ether.

But it didn’t come from the ether: in fact, there are only two places whence it could have originated. One is Woodward, and the other is the source whose confidentiality and whose information Woodward had safeguarded for two years. Woodward, of course, would immediately have known that someone at the White House, either his source or someone close to his source, was talking to a New York Times reporter — probably David Johnston, assuming Woodward wasn’t blowing smoke about the call from the CIA — and to Isikoff, who no doubt hit the phones to see what else he could chase down and then let Woodward and anyone watching Larry King know that something was cooking. And again, if Woodward is to be believed, the Times reporter was feeding the information back to someone at the CIA. (In retrospect, it seems Isikoff may have forced Woodward’s source’s hand: less than a week later, Mr. X was talking to Fitzgerald.)

If Woodward wasn’t the source of the rumors, which seems likely given his reticence — he didn’t even tell his editors about this until last month — then his source was the source, either directly or by proxy.** This is General Hospital stuff; if these people, the reporters and the administration officials, were any further and more exotically in bed with each other, they’d be breaking laws in most states. This is very, very far from the passive roles claimed by Rove and Libby, and from the intrepid practice of journalism claimed by reporters like Woodward and Miller in defending their unnatural relations with administration officials.

The perhaps not so obvious questions the King incident raises are why Woodward’s source decided to blow his own cover, why Woodward didn’t recognize that as a cue to start writing a story, why Johnston, if that’s who the Times reporter is, was bouncing this off the CIA, and why Isikoff decided to punk Woodward on what is still, sadly, a much-watched cable talk show.

The bonus question, for 500 points and a lifetime subscription to BTC News: If Woodward was “quite aggressively reporting” a Plame-related story during October, as he said yesterday, where the hell is the story?

Any thoughts would be most welcome.

Here’s a partial list of Woodward coverage.

The New York Times, whose editors must be relieved by the opportunity to kick around someone outside their own newsroom for a change, has two stories, here, dealing mostly with the peculiarities of Woodward’s situation, and here in connection with the impact the news may have on the Plame investigation. The second story offers a list of White House officials who weren’t Woodward’s source, concluding with this: “Mr. Cheney did not join the parade of denials. A spokeswoman said he would have no comment on a continuing investigation. Several other officials could not be reached for comment.”

The Washington Post has three stories in addition to the one breaking the news. Dan Froomkin does his usual sterling job of commenting on the situation and linking to addtional coverage; Howard Kurtz covers Woodward’s defensive apology to Post executive editor Len Downie Jr.; and, Woodward summarizes his sworn deposition.

Among the best sources of commentary and coverage are Josh Marshall, who addresses the somewhat bizarre notion that Woodward’s mystery source somehow renders Scooter Libby honest; Jack Shafer at Slate, who embraces the afore-mentioned bizarre notion for no apparent reason, but does a fine job of reaming Woodward; John Aravosis at AmericaBlog with a critique of Woodward’s “subpoena fear” defense for not revealing the existence of his source to his boss; Will Bunch on the significance and sad decline of Woodward over the years; Arianna Huffington with a similar but less heartfelt Woodward lamentation, along with a number of links to other commentary; and, Washington Note proprietor Steve Clemons with another acerbic take on Woodward.

For pretty much everything on the topic by pretty much everyone, here’s the 300-strong (and counting) roster of sites commenting on the Post’s Woodward coverage, via Technorati, courtesy of the Post’s Froomkin.

*Woodward actually said “Bush administration official,” not “White House official.” We regret the error, in more ways than one.

**A third possibility occurs, that what Woodward described as his aggressive reporting during October alerted Bush administration officials, who alerted reporters.

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