Okay, I’m confused. I mean, first I thought “Deep Throat” was Linda Lovelace. Then I found out, no, it’s a guy, and he’s Hal Holbrook. And now it turns out, of all things, that he’s a former FBI bigwig named Mark Felt who is not a woman and doesn’t look a thing like Hal Holbrook (although whenever Hal Holbrook turned up on “West Wing,” I kept wondering if he was later spilling secrets about Bartlet to the Washington Post.)
I find it interesting that he’s felt conflicted all this time, wondering if he was an American hero or an American traitor. Me, I’d say hero. But I can’t help but wonder how the current White House would view him…and, for that matter, if they would prosecute him if they could.
PAD
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I’m Republican, and I consider the guy a hero. Nixon was a paranoid humunculous of a man who abused the power of his office. Not only that, but because of this Bob Woodward became relevant- and really, I think we’re all losers for that.
He’s definitely a hero. He saw that something was wrong and he did what he could about it. As a member of the FBI it was his duty to do what was in the best interest of America and it’s people and he did just that.
I don’t think I can add anything to what Fnliii said. Felt did the right thing, and I suspect that you’d find a consensus for that across party lines.
Supposedly, he didn’t leak the information out of a sense of justice, but more because he was a J. Edgar Hoover protege who was burnt by Nixon’s attempts to assert more control over the FBI after Hoover’s death, and Nixon had passed him over for the Director position in favor of L. Patrick Gray.
Regardless of his motivations though, what he did was essential to upholding of the rule of law and the foundations of the constitutional democracy, so I’m glad he did it, and whistleblowers need to be encouraged, especially in this day and age. I find it unfortunate who Richard Clarke’s testimony was basically swept under the rug. Maybe we’ve just gotten jaded about government corruption.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the current administration tried to prosecute him. Nothing they do surprises me anymore. :rolls eyes:
I would consider him a hero. Sometimes you have to go against the laws, the rules and just tell the truth (or point others in the right direction to discover the truth), so justice and honor and respectability can be restored.
I’m of mixed mind on the who “hero” thing – and apparently so was he. Rather than let the investigative process underway take its course, he violated the law and his oath. Mind you, so did Nixon, but it’s hard for me to hold someone up as a hero – especially when the main reason he’s coming forward now is to pay some bills.
I suppose we could pull up the Christopher Reeve post. 🙂
1 thought it was Principal Woodman.
How high up in the FBI was he? #2?
No doubt in my mind, the mans a hero.
We need more heroes like that today.
I still want someone to pay for outing Plame and putting agents lives at risk. Or more specifically, the two senior someones that Novak called “senior administration sources”.
I prefer to call them “Karl” and “Ðìçk”, but that’s just me.
Del said:
1 thought it was Principal Woodman.
And I thought it was Jerry Hardin.
“No doubt in my mind, the mans a hero.”
“We need more heroes like that today.”
“I still want someone to pay for outing Plame and putting agents lives at risk. Or more specifically, the two senior someones that Novak called “senior administration sources”. “
No evidence that any agents lives were put at risk. In fact, the New York Times now wonders if a crime was even committed. Not that this would silence the calls for jail time. Leaks are only good if they hurt the, you know, “right” people.
Of course Deep Throat was a hero–a right wing Hooverite uses illegal leaks of FBI investigations (and we are talking Hoover’s FBI–they probably had a stack of photos on Nixon a mile high) to take down the executive branch. Brings a tear to my eye.
Man, can you IMAGINE how ugly it must be at the Washington Post this morning? Scooped by Vanity Fair? On their own story?
“No evidence that any agents lives were put at risk.”
That’s a hard thing to quantify. ‘Risk’ is so nebulous.
And this isn’t about hurting the “right” people. It’s about doing the right thing.
Outing a CIA agent in order to discredit her husbands refutation of the Bush Administrations lies… that’s just wrong, no matter how you slice it.
“In November 1980, Felt and Edward S. Miller, then head of the FBI’s intelligence division, were convicted of authorizing break-ins without warrants into the homes of members of the Weathermen in the 1970s, a radical antiwar group. During the trial, Felt testified that he was following standard procedures for government investigations, according to Vanity Fair.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/la-053105deep_lat,1,6146859.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
THe curent administration would put in on trial for treason and execute him on public television.
I vote the guy’s a hero
Bladestar: For that reason specifically?
I kid, I kid.
Seriously, the guy goes down as a hero in my book. He brought the truth to light in a time when it was in short supply. Good for him.
I remember in high school, we did a unit on Watergate in my history class. One of the mini-essays we were assigned asked the question of, between Dean* and Liddy, who was the hero and who was the rat. I made that decision in about five seconds. Admittedly, it was bolstered by Liddy’s constant protestations on the radio and occasional appearances on Maher’s show about the Clinton administration’s abuse of private freedoms.
Incidentally, does anyone know why Woodward and Bernstein nicknamed their secret source after, of all things, a hardcore pørņ flick?
*Not Howard, but a top-level Nixon aide.
Wasn’t it Waylon Smithers?
He’d be at Camp X-Ray wearing a hood and no clothes.
Yes, Felt was #2 at the FBI.
I consider him a hero, a whistleblower, but all things considered, it sounds like he himself also broke the law by his methods. Which, in the case of Nixon, was very justifiable imo.
I find some of the debate now very amusing – whether Felt really was Deep Throat or this is just a ploy, whether Felt was given too much credit as Deep Throat, was Woodward doing some misleading with some of the statements in his book “All the President’s Men” about who Deep Throat was, etc.
I’m not sure if “American Hero” is the right way to put it, but the guy should be applauded and thanked (which I’m sure the book deal will do).
I was very surprised by the radio commentary I listened to this morning, describing him as a money-grubbing snitch, which is just sad. I was annoyed at the motives they were attributing to him. If he’d wanted money he could have come out a long time ago; if he wanted a normal life, he couldn’t, plain as that.
A good deed that should be repeated by anyone who knows about illegal activies in any administration (okay, maybe not Linda Tripp. While I think Clinton is an immoral scum sucking worm, that whole affair was just stupid).
“Outing a CIA agent in order to discredit her husbands refutation of the Bush Administrations lies… that’s just wrong, no matter how you slice it.”
I agree, though it would be nice if someone would actually prove that that is what happened..as opposed to just hoping that it did.
But it brings up an interesting point. Several have commented that Felt is a hero for , as one said, “He brought the truth to light in a time when it was in short supply.”
Now if “truth” is enough to make it right then how can we jail someone for stating the truth–Valery Plame was a CIA agent. And if one makes the (quite reasonable) statement that CIA agents must be protected, should this also apply to other people who would be in dangered if their identity were revealed? Is it illegal to state that an undercover cop is a cop? And at what point does this law get superseded by other laws–if a reporter discovers that a CIA agent is breaking the law is he or she legally forced to keep the possibly very pertinent information of his career secret?
describing him as a money-grubbing snitch,
I think this one has come about because Felt’s daughter has stated something to the effect that Felt could now make some money off of this, and the daughter is in debt due to trying to pay for education for her children.
Now, at 91, I’m not sure how much more anybody can expect to get out of the guy. Not saying he’s senile or anything (it sounds like he’s far from it), but I don’t think he’s up for getting grilled day after day by whomever is going to write said books (provided he doesn’t have it all written down already).
Hero or traitor? Hero. Sure, Mark Felt’s reasons for contacting Woodward in the first place may have been prompted in part by his annoyance at being passed over as Hoover’s replacement; but, as the Vanity Fair article indicates, it may also have been prompted by a love of the FBI. Felt was a staunch FBI man, and the cover up of the FBI’s investigation was making the bureau look bad (at least in Felt’s eyes).
Now, just to be clear, it’s not that love of the FBI that makes him a hero; that’s incidental. What makes him a hero, and not a traitor, is that he helped expose illegal activities at the highest level of government.
On another note, Vanity Fair didn’t scoop the Washington Post. Such a statement implies the Post had also been planning to reveal “Deep Throat’s” true identity. And that wasn’t the case. Neither Woodward, Bernstein nor Bradlee had intended to reveal “Deep Throat’s” identity until after he had died. And, in fact, they had initially issued “no comment” statements when Felt came forward, before deciding to confirm.
But back to the traitor or hero question. While watching _Doctor Who_ on the CBC last night, I saw an ad for the news program, _The National_, plugging a story about Felt’s revelation as “Deep Throat.” So, at 10, I tuned in, to see what sort of coverage the story got in the Canadian media. One of the people interviewed was G. Gordon Liddy, who said that Felt should have taken his information to a grand jury, rather than a reporter.
Is Rod Serling around here somewhere? It seems just a bit disingenuous for G. Gordon Liddy to suggest that Felt should have followed the rule of law.
Rick
Nixon did commit crimes as a President. Here’s a site that will give you hours of reading pleasure about another political powerhouse: http://www.ytedk.com/
I think this is the latest latch-on story by the media in an effort not to cover the war in Iraq. It should be an interesting sidebar story at best instead of the complete and total coverage that it is getting.
I think it’s ironic that two real investigative journalists and their story are being used to prop up the shabby shambling non-entity that the fifth estate has become.
Tomorrow the news will be cancelled by a return to Michael Jackson and the public will be kept in the dark as to what their Senators and Congressmen are doing for awhile longer.
Now if “truth” is enough to make it right then how can we jail someone for stating the truth–Valery Plame was a CIA agent.
You’re deliberately distorting there Bill. I never said “truth” was enough to make it right. Nor did anyone else that I can recall.
And if one makes the (quite reasonable) statement that CIA agents must be protected,
should this also apply to other people who would be in dangered if their identity were revealed?
I don’t make this statement. It simply happens to be the law of the land.
Is it illegal to state that an undercover cop is a cop?
Again, look to the law.
if a reporter discovers that a CIA agent is breaking the law is he or she legally forced to keep the possibly very pertinent information of his career secret?
I am not a lawyer, but no, I don’t think so.
All of which is moot anyway, and a distraction from what I said. Namely that Plame was outted to discredit her husbands refutation of the Bush Administrations lies. No more and no less.
though it would be nice if someone would actually prove that that is what happened
Well, if you’re going to start by questioning the most basic and obvious fundamentals, then why not start with “Can someone prove to me that she even exists?”
Man! Did you see Hal Holbrook’s comments on Deep Throat? That old man was a thing o’ rage! “It doesn’t matter who Deep Throat was, he was a moral man, and no one today has any morality!” Please note I’m paraphrasing, but he certainly made his feelings known about whether DT’s actions were right or wrong. Three cheers for PAD, DT, and HH.
Hero is too strong a word — but so is traitor. I think Felt was just another actor motivated by acute self-interest in a larger, seedy drama. Nixon was a crook, no question, but it sure sounds like Felt acted out of spite over being passed over for a job more than anything else. If anything, Watergate is a great symbol for the greedy venality of the political culture.
I remember the Mad Magazine (or was it Cracked?) parody of ‘All the President’s Men’ showed Deep Throat to be Gerald Ford…
It was most interesting to me that Woodward confirmed it, too.
BTW, PAD, did you get my e-mail “Smallville Writer Seeks Help”?
“But I can’t help but wonder how the current White House would view him…and, for that matter, if they would prosecute him if they could.”
Prosecute him?
At his age? What would be the point?
Does a single thought EVER go through your brain without getting “BUSH SUCKS” attached to it?
Yep. One did about 5 weeks ago. But then Bush gave me yet another reason to say he sucks.
I bet you wake up every day and say, “Good morning, Bush Sucks!”
Well, actually… I haven’t yet this morning, but now that you mention it:
Man, Bush sucks.
Excuse me, Felt a hero. You have got to be kidding. He did the right thing for all the wrong reasons. The guy was a creep. He did not care about the law. Look at what he did to the Weather Underground. He was a Hooverite. He should not be honored.
Now listen, I do not think he was some sort of traitor, but he was no Daniel Ellsburg who did something for the right reason and suffered for it.
“You’re deliberately distorting there Bill. I never said “truth” was enough to make it right. Nor did anyone else that I can recall.”
I wasn’t in any way shape or form trying to distort your words–I took your post as jump offpoint to raise some issues. If I wanted to call you on it, John, I would have directed the question right at you.
“And if one makes the (quite reasonable) statement that CIA agents must be protected,
should this also apply to other people who would be in dangered if their identity were revealed?”
I don’t make this statement. It simply happens to be the law of the land.
Again, I was making a hypothetical, not claiming that you were making the statement. My question, which I still don’t have the answer to, is why we seem to have an exemption to free speech only for CIA agents? It may be the law of the land but I am asking if it is a good law?
(To clear up any confusion someone (and by someone, I am again not necessarily meaning you, John) may have, I believe that if Plame’s name was in fact deliberately leaked to discredit her husband than the perpetrator should get in trouble. Big trouble)
“if a reporter discovers that a CIA agent is breaking the law is he or she legally forced to keep the possibly very pertinent information of his career secret?”
I am not a lawyer, but no, I don’t think so.
So are you suggesting that a possible mitigating circumstance for the leaker would be if they believed that Richard Clarke was being less than honest on the reasons why he was chosen by the CIA for his mission? Once you allow the law to be broken for “pertinent” reasons you now open a big can of worms.
“All of which is moot anyway, and a distraction from what I said. Namely that Plame was outted to discredit her husbands refutation of the Bush Administrations lies. No more and no less.”
One of the nice things about this sort of forum is that we are free to go off in whatever direction the conversation(s) take us. My thoughts were not meant to “distract” people in any way and at any rate, I have no such power.
Well, if you’re going to start by questioning the most basic and obvious fundamentals, then why not start with “Can someone prove to me that she even exists?”
Ah. Basic and obvious. I see. Well, I wish they’d stop dicking around with all that grand jury silliness, since the Truth Is Plain For All To See. You know, I’m as guilty as anyone on sometimes forgetting the whole “Innocent until proven guilty” thing but at least I usually wait until someone is actually on trial or at least indicted! (BTW, this paragraph actually IS about you!)
So, who shall we send to jail?
I just find it interesting that one of the truisms of journalism is that disgruntled employees make the absolute best sources. And when you come down to it–between being obstructed by the White House on the Watergate investigation and feeling he’d been unfairly passed over for the top slot–Felt fit that description to a “t.”
PAD
I thought Felt was a witness to a crime and the only way he could expose the criminals was through the Washington Post because of the crooked administration that was in power. The thing is as well; in a true democracy is there really such a thing as “traitor”? I thought the idea of a traitor belongs to authoritarian regimes but in a democracy with the freedom of conscience, thought and political belief, doesn’t “traitor” become meaningless?
Good Morning, Craig.
Yes, he does, doesn’t he.
Kevin,
I don’t think you can argue that one can’t be a traitor in a country that allows for freedom of thought–in fact, it is only in such a place that one could choose to be a traitor in the first place.
In this country that would mean that while one can be a loyal Amarican and have any dámņ crazy belief one wishes, if you try to enforce that belief outside of legal means you may well be a traitor. Tim McVeigh was.
Felt was not a traitor for the simple reason that his allegeance was to the country, not to the president. One could argue that Nixon, in subverting the constitution he was obligated to uphold, was the true traitor (as was Liddy and the others who supported him. I’ve never understood how some people consider Liddy admirable for his loyalty to Nixon. Goebbels was loyal too, it’s a not a particularly admirable trait if it isn’t paired with enough ethics to ensure it is only given to the man or cause that deserve it.).
I thought it was Jimmy James.
Bill – interesting comments 🙂
Coming at it another way though, McVeigh was a criminal and a terrorist. “Traitor” can be a dangerous thing because it doesn’t always distinguish between thought and action. In a truly free country though can the State really dictate where your loyalty should lie? Doesn’t the State exist at the license of the people and not the other way around?
So, how far apart are disgruntled employees and mis-treated terrorist detainees? If the first make the best journalistic sources, wouldn’t it make a sort of sense that the second would as well?
I’m referring of course to Bush’s dismissal of independant reports of mistreatment of US POWs…I mean detainees…because the source of the complaints are prisoners that hate the US. Well, who else is going to report about abuse if not the prisoners?
>Question: Who will you hate and blame the >world’s troubles on once Bush is out of office?
Now see… I say this to Republicans who still natter on about Clinton being the cause of all the USA’s problems. At least we’re complaining about someone who is in power and supposedly is shaping policy and deciions that are currently impacting the country.
If only Bush just sucked…
This Just In!!!!!
‘Deep Throat’ Family May Cash in on Fame
http://news.yahoo.com/fc/us/richard_nixon
Shocking, just shocking!!
At least we’re complaining about someone who is in power and supposedly is shaping policy and deciions that are currently impacting the country.
Yeah, and we did it for eight years in the mid-to-late 1990s. Fair is fair.
Mike says:
“I think this is the latest latch-on story by the media in an effort not to cover the war in Iraq. It should be an interesting sidebar story at best instead of the complete and total coverage that it is getting.”
Now come ON, Mike! This is just ridiculous–it’s one thing to believe that there is a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy among the 4th Estate to hide the news (and it’s one piss poor conspiracy since I can get the news in Iraq from about 100 sources without even trying) but when you use, as evidence, the breaking of one of the biggest political mysteries of the last 50 years…I mean, really.
Other than the capturing Bigfoot, photos of Bill Clinton hooking up with JLo, or Jim Morrison and Andy Kaufman holding a joint press conference to announce “It was just a joke”, I can’t imagine any story that was MORE guaranteed to generate press interest.
Incidentally…news from Iraq managed to make it on the front page of Yahoo, AOL news, AP World, Boston Globe, CBS news, Chicago Sun Times, CNN, Fox News, (one could go on) ALL of them have stories about Iraq today. I guess the “effort not to cover the war in Iraq” is proving harder than they thought.
I thought it was Forest Gump who blew the whistle!
I think Felt’s indictment over violating the Weather Underground’s civil rights was the main reason for him to stay silent. He needed Reagan’s pardon. Reagan’s death probably relieved much of the pressure to stay in hiding.
With congressmen calling for Bush to explain the British intelligence memo, and Ralph Nader calling for Bush’s impeachment in the Boston Globe over it, the identity of Deep Throat surfacing happens to draw a powerful parallel.
Heard an interesting comment today. “Deep Throat” and the whole Watergate affair brought us Carter. Had a Republican been in office during the Iranian Hostage Situation, then there would have been no Regan. Of course, following that train, no Regan, meant no Bush the Father nor any Bush the Son. (And probably no Clinton.) So, Deep Throat brought about the chain of events that gave us our current political scene.
No less a light than G. Gordon Liddy has declared Felt to be on the wrong side of law enforcement ethics for his actions, making the slightly compelling argument that as a law enforcement officer, Felt had a lot of other options within proper channels before leaking information to a single newspaper and counting upon its actions to facilitate justice.
Of course, that completely discounts empathy for someone who acted with the incredibly weighty knowledge that he was jeopardizing the administration of a very vengeful president, which could of course make “proper channels” a dicey proposition. Imagine carrying around that sort of information and trying to figure out how best to handle it.
Also worth mentioning is that it is a criticism that comes from someone who orchestrated and carried out the very break-in that was at the heart of the problem, not exactly an unimpeachable source of ethical judgment in this particular circumstance.
Some folks at work were in the hallway discussing this whole thing today. As I walked by, one of the attractive young ladies commented: “We need a Deep Throat today.” I agreed and left…quickly.
More for Carter and Reagan, but I disagree about the others.
In the 1980 primaries, it was Reagan and Bush, and Bush was backed by the republican staff of Nixon and Ford. So I think it’s reasonable to assume Bush would have taken the republican primary in 1980 or after serving as vice president regardless of Watergate or Iran.
As for Clinton, he was an ideal centrist candidate for the democrats to present whose only major vulnerability was his infidelities — Bush couldn’t capitalize on this in 1992 because Carville let the Bush-camp know they would retaliate with George’s own infidelity. The republican party was also a divided tent in the 1990s after Reagan, so overall the impact of watergate on Clinton’s presidency is also not so certain.
Rove is third-generation to republican dirty-tricks campaigning, so I also think it’s reasonable to assume Bush II would have taken the republican primary after his father.
I don’t think you white folks realize how fixed the marketplace really is. They systematically flushed the votes from entire black counties in Florida in 2000 — yet for Gray Davis, a recall election for the entire state of California was warranted.