Quote of the Week

"But suppose there's a young reporter who's only had a couple of years — or 10 years' — experience and the White House is sending him an email saying, 'You're going to regret this,'" Woodward said. "You know, tremble, tremble. I don't think it's the way to operate."

 

WASHINGTON — Journalist Bob Woodward on Wednesday said a senior White House official told him he would "regret" taking issue in recent days with President Barack Obama's version of how across-the-board budget cuts came to be.

Woodward said in interviews with Politico and CNN that when he informed the White House he was writing a story critical of the White House's handling of a debate over the origin of the cuts, known as sequestration, the official reacted angrily.

The aide "yelled at me for about a half hour," Woodward told Politico, and then followed up the tirade with an email.

"I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today," the official wrote Woodward. "You're focusing on a few specific trees that give a very wrong impression of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. ... I think you will regret staking out that claim."

Politico reported that Woodward saw the statement as a veiled threat.