WALNUT CREEK, Calif. -- During a rare appearance together in Walnut Creek Monday night, veteran Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein recalled their historic investigative journalism that helped bring down President Richard Nixon and spoke of a recent meeting with the Bay Area man whose secret information provided the breakthrough in the Watergate scandal.

It was 35 years ago when Woodward and Bernstein exposed the hotel break-in by Republican operatives that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. The two journalists' paths have parted since their investigative reporting helped bring down a president, but the famed reporting duo still drew a sizeable crowd at an appearance together the Bay Area.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein spoke before a sold-out crowd of almost 800 Monday night at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek. One of the surprising revelations the two men made during their speaking engagement was that they had met with Mark Felt at his Santa Rosa home Sunday.

Felt was the high-ranking FBI official who revealed in 2005 he was Deep Throat -- the secret informant who helped Woodward and Bernstein during their investigation of Watergate.

"It was a wonderful familial thing to do, and we're both very glad that we did it," said Berstein told KTVU when asked about the meeting.

It was the first time all three men had been together and, in fact, marked the first time Bernstein ever met the legendary Watergate whistleblower face-to-face.

Almost four decades after their reporting on the Watergate break-in brought down the Nixon presidency, the men say America still needs a critical press to hold leaders accountable. Even if most people now access that information through computers.

"The important thing to me is the best of our tradition from where we come from be passed on to these institutions," explained Bernstein.

Today, President Bush has an even lower approval rating than Nixon did when he resigned. News coverage of Hurricane Katrina and especially the war in Iraq have hurt the current president's credibility.

"It was a travesty and it was a catastrophe, and Bush was out there publicly saying 'Oh no, we've turned a corner. We're winning. Absolutely,'" said Woodward. "And people said 'Wait a minute; we expect our president to tell us something at least close to the truth."

Bernstein had similar thoughts regarding the president's performance during the Katrina disaster. "We lost a great American city on his watch, and he didn't tell the truth about that," said Bernstein.

Both men say Nixon's misdeeds are well-documented, history has yet to be written on President Bush, but the first drafts -- the news coverage -- aren't favorable.

"We need to engage presidents. One of the things that happened with Bush is he outsourced. He delegated. He wasn't on top of the facts," said Woodward.