Incredibly Aggressive Reporting Mode

This is pretty funny. Think Progress had this from a blurb for Larry King Live, but now you can read the whole transcript. In trying to explain how he got so deep into the Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame story, Woodward said:

Then, the day of the indictment I read the charges against Libby and looked at the press conference by the special counsel and he said the first disclosure of all of this was on June 23rd, 2003 by Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff to "New York Times" reporter Judy Miller.

I went, whoa, because I knew I had learned about this in mid- June, a week, ten days before, so then I say something is up. There's a piece that the special counsel does not have in all of this.

I then went into incredibly aggressive reporting mode . . .

How do you go into "incredibly aggressive reporting mode" when you're the story? Surely he's got some sort of long-term agreement with himself, but are his thoughts always on the record, or can he only use them as deep background? Does he have to credit himself by name or by position if he ever uses any of his own information? Has he ever refused to pass along information to himself that he knew he had?

Actually, I guess I should point out that I did end the quote in the middle of a sentence. Woodward does provide an answer to my question. Here's the full quote:

I then went into incredibly aggressive reporting mode and called the source the beginning of the next week and said "Do you realize when we talked about this and exactly what was said?"

"Incredibly aggressive reporting mode" apparently means that, a couple of days later, he called his source and said, "Do you remember what you told me?" And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the kind of gumption and shoe leather that brought down a president. Woodward is inspiring a new generation of journalists even as we speak.