Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who broke Watergate together, have different takes on the media’s treatment of Trump. Woodward thinks the media is too tough, Bernstein thinks it’s not tough enough. Not surprising — as people they are as different as the light of day and the dark of night:
Woodward, 60, whose parents divorced when he was 12, is the son of a Midwestern Republican judge, graduated from Yale in 1965, and joined the Navy. He’s a quiet, punctilious, conservative, poker-playing workaholic who has written ten bestsellers since All the President’s Men. He’s never left the Post, establishing himself as a journalistic elder statesman whose phone calls inspire fear.
Bernstein, 59, grew up in Silver Spring, a “red diaper” baby born to Communist activists who remained married for 63 years. He became a Washington Star copyboy at 16, a pool shark, a teen leader in B’nai Brith, and a University of Maryland dropout. He’s now more famous as a celebrity than as a journalist, with his name appearing in gossip-column items about the women he’s dated and the people he owes money.
