Woodward to Sperling: "Yes" we can put email exchange behind us
(CBS News) As a peace offering, Bob Woodward will invite to his home the senior White House adviser who reportedly sent him a veiled threat following an article in which the Washington journalism veteran laid out research pinning the controversial idea for sequestration on President Obama's administration.
"The answer is, 'yes,'" Woodward said on "Face the Nation," in response to White House economic adviser Gene Sperling's request to put behind them the spat that snowballed into a nationwide debate.
After publishing a story last week that traced the blind, across-the-board sequester cuts back to the White House, the Washington Post editor said Sperling sent him an email warning, "as a friend," that Woodward will "regret staking out that claim."
Woodward said he leaked the emails to Politico reporters for a story they were writing about bullying from the White House. "And I cited the Sperling emails as an example of not the way to operate," he said. "I never said it was threatening, I just said, 'This just won't work,' and it won't work."
Sperling on ABC's "This Week" today praised Woodward as a "legend," and said he hopes "him and I can put this behind us."
"He's a peacemaker," Woodward said of Sperling. "I'm in the business of listening, and I'm going to invite him over to my house if he'll come, and hopefully he'll bring others from the White House - maybe the president himself. ...Talking really works."
Made famous by breaking the news of former President Nixon's Watergate scandal, Woodward reasoned, "like all White Houses," members of the current administration "don't like to be challenged."
