mark waas

It should be obvious from the work who the Woodward of Now is.

The guy’s name is Murray Waas; he’s an independent journalist who recently went to work as a staff writer for National Journal and the Atlantic Media Company, which owns the Atlantic Monthly, the Journal, and other titles. Murray Waas has been in the game since he was 18, when he started working for the columnist Jack Anderson.

By Woodward Now I mean the reporter who is actually doing what Woodward has a reputation for doing: finding, tracking, breaking into reportable parts—and then publishing—the biggest story in town. He’s also putting those parts together for us.

The Biggest Story in Town (almost a term of art in political Washington) is the one that would cause the biggest earthquake if the facts sealed inside it started coming out now. Today the biggest story in town is what really went down as the Bush team drove deceptively to war, and later tried to conceal the deception—and decision-making—had been.

We are still “in” that story today, as is the press (deeply in it) and so a lot rides on what comes out.