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Is Mark Felt a hero for leaking the information about the Watergate burglary to Woodward and Bernstein that brought down Richard Nixon? A. Yes B. No, if he had resigned and brought his charges before Congress, the issue would have been before the public during the 1972 election and the scandal would have been avoided. C. Yes, that might have meant George McGovern ending up as president. D. No, we ended up with Jimmy Carter E. If he’s a hero how come Gary Aldrich and Linda Tripp aren’t heroes?

In the Watergate myth, two intrepid young reporters – guided by a conscientious whistleblower sickened at the scent of fascism he has found at the center of power, and backed up by a courageous and crusty editor – bring down the most dangerous tyrant in U.S. history. It is the Great Myth of American journalism. Now, thanks to Mark Felt's family wanting to get the old boy some publicity and themselves some of Woodward's stash, the Great Myth has been demolished. Watergate involved two conspiracies. The first, now ancient history, was the botched cover-up of a break-in at the Democratic...

There can be no doubt that the media is in the throes of self-congratulatory excess as a result of Mark Felt having been mis-identified as the mythical Deep Throat. The celebration continues unabated notwithstanding the existence of evidence that might lead one to conclude that the lynchpin of the affair is fictional. In a February 18, 2005 interview by Fox News personality Sheppard Smith, historian Eric Burns stated: Burns: "The noted historian, who had at Simon & Schuster the same editor as Woodward and Bernstein. Stephen Ambrose told me this. There is in the safe at Simon & Schuster a...

“PASS ME the binoculars, Dan,” said the beta male from Gamma Wiring. “I want to get another look at her legs.” I passed the binoculars. He got another look at her legs. “Anyway, where was I?” he continued. “Oh yes, our new cable labelling protocol. It’s simple, but ingenious.” And so, as the cheerleaders warmed up the crowd for a London Monarchs game, I endured a half-hour briefing on the best way of telling apart plastic-coated wires. When he finally, finally reached the end of his monologue, he added these words: “And that’s all off the record.” I was able,...

Accuracy in Media (AIM) said today that revelations that former FBI official Mark Felt himself had other sources in the Watergate scandal mean that the real identity of Deep Throat has not been fully disclosed. AIM editor Cliff Kincaid said that a Brendan Lyons story in The Albany Times Union (N.Y), also published on the front page of today's Washington Times, identifies Felt as only one of several FBI officials who fed information to The Washington Post during the scandal that brought down President Nixon. "Felt's role as Deep Throat diminishes day by day," said Kincaid. "It seems clear he...

Ah, Deep Throat. At last we meet. This was one of America's most intriguing secrets, even though Carl Bernstein's kid leaked it to a buddy at a summer camp who wrote a school paper identifying W. Mark Felt and nobody paid attention. We all had our theories, but also somehow knew that none of the more popular ones quite fit. Mr. Felt, shown on TV emerging from his modest Santa Rosa, Calif., home to confirm his self-revelation in Vanity Fair, looked sharp as a whip at 91, and revealed a wry "cat that ate the canary" smile that he's had...

Mmmmmmm; the delicious taste of those well-remembered names: Nixon, Mitchell, Bradlee, Woodward and -- somehow more savory than most -- Deep Throat. The self-outing of W. Mark Felt, who confirmed the expectations of many by revealing himself as a main, early source for Bob Woodward's Watergate stories, came just in time for a country basically out of news; or weary of such news as it had -- filibusters, violence in Iraq, the start of the summer reruns. It was like old times, masticating those names again. And that was just the trouble -- the questionable odor that went with the...

On the trail of the secret informant By J. TODD FOSTER The News Virginian Wednesday, June 1, 2005 I've been waiting three years for what happened Tuesday: That W. Mark Felt would be named "Deep Throat." Actually, he was outed as Deep Throat by relatives and an attorney who began pitching me the story in June 2002, when I was a regular contributor to People magazine. There's little doubt that Felt is indeed the super-secret source who helped topple a president. The Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Ben Bradlee confirmed as much Tuesday. But there's one interview you won't be...

The historical sense … involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence…. – T. S. Eliot Wh-a-a-t? Mark Felt was Deep Throat? And here all along I thought it was Hal Holbrook. For the Nixon Years long ago took on the look of a classic old movie, specifically a film noir you might run across in the middle of the night on TV and be unable to turn off. You know you really should be getting some sleep, but the story — and the characters! — cast a spell. It was Bob Dole,...

 

The Washington Post's media reporter, Howard Kurtz, says that a lesson of Watergate is the "burning need for original reporting" on major issues of public importance. But where is the original reporting on whether former FBI official Mark Felt is really Deep Throat? "The 'trust me' journalism that caused Muslim riots in the Newsweek Koran case is being accepted by the major media with regard to the naming of Deep Throat," noted Accuracy in Media editor Cliff Kincaid. "Yet there is no independent evidence that Felt, who repeatedly denied being Deep Throat and now suffers from severe memory problems, was...

One by one, the landmark epics of the 1970s are tying up the loose ends -- alas, not always in ways that quite support the great mythic power invested in them. In ''Revenge of the Sith,'' George Lucas brings the ''Star Wars'' cycle to a close by revealing how Anakin Skywalker went over to the Dark Side, transformed himself into Darth Vader, destroyed the Republic and consigned it to the mad imperial ambitions of Chancellor Palpatine -- all because, er, he was a bit worried his beloved Senator Padme might die in childbirth. If Senator Padme had been like Senator...

The Bush Administration prosecutes government officials who leak sensitive information, even when that information is not classified -- as I noted in my column on Jonathan Randal. The Administration is also prepared to send reporters to jail when they refuse to reveal their sources to a grand jury, as I noted in another column. I doubt the Justice Department will go after W. Mark Felt -- the ninety-one-year- old former Deputy Director of the FBI - even if he is the greatest leaker in American political history. Still, in the context of the Administration's stances on leaking, the surfacing of...

MARK FELT WITH the secret revealed for the world, publishers at the Book Expo America trade show were getting a whole new spin on a book deal involving former FBI agent W. Mark Felt, or Deep Throat, who helped topple a president. Agent David Kuhn and author/lawyer John D. O'Connor — in their meetings with publishers — have recast the proposal as a multi-generational saga focusing on three generations of the Felt family. It will include the 30-year career of Felt, who became the No. 2 man in the bureau at a tumultuous time in U.S. history, and the...

What was Watergate? Was it a bungled 1972 third-rate break-in to the opposition's campaign headquarters? Was it a cover-up by Nixon of his run-amok subordinates? Was it persistent jurists, legislators and newspeople piercing the omerta? Was it Nixon's 1974 resignation in disgrace? It was all those things, as matters of historic facts. Yet it was more, much more. Major historic events are so not so much because of their impact at the time, so many of which just become curious footnotes in dry tomes. They are major historic events due to their continuing major impact across decades and their continuing...

Forced to bring 'Deep Throat' to light Vanity Fair's scoop and family's mission to cash in led Woodward to change his plans By TODD S. PURDUM and JIM RUTENBERG New York Times WASHINGTON - This was not the way Bob Woodward expected to tell the last chapter of the Watergate story that he and the Washington Post have owned for more than 30 years: the identity of "Deep Throat." Woodward, a Washington media machine, has long been largely insulated from normal journalistic rivalries. But last week, in the wake of Vanity Fair magazine's disclosure that W. Mark Felt was his...

Joan Felt, who played a pivotal role in unraveling the 30-year secret that her father was the mysterious "Deep Throat" source, says he is lucid and feels reassured that he made the right decision. He is "relieved to get the secret off his chest," Felt said in the first comments by a family member since the revelation last week that W. Mark Felt, then the No. 2 person in the FBI, was the key source in the Washington Post's Watergate investigation that helped bring down President Richard M. Nixon. As both praise and criticism of Joan Felt and her family...

Nixon's crimes were penny ante, even when compared to the dirty tricks routinely played on him by Democratic pranksters, and no break-in or cover-up can be compared with the Kennedys’s\ naked theft of the presidency in 1960. That Nixon, not Kennedy should go down in history as a great presidential criminal is a tribute to the dishonest mythomania of the media... To concoct an impeachment charge out of the “burglars’” antics showed the depths of immorality to which the Democratic Party had sunk. I respected Sam Ervine, chairman of the Senate committee, who had consistently opposed every increase of federal...

On the trail of the secret informant By J. TODD FOSTER The News Virginian Wednesday, June 1, 2005 I've been waiting three years for what happened Tuesday: That W. Mark Felt would be named "Deep Throat." Actually, he was outed as Deep Throat by relatives and an attorney who began pitching me the story in June 2002, when I was a regular contributor to People magazine. There's little doubt that Felt is indeed the super-secret source who helped topple a president. The Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Ben Bradlee confirmed as much Tuesday. But there's one interview you won't...

I share the pride of my Post colleagues in our newspaper's pursuit of Watergate, "the biggest political story in modern American history," as reporter Michael Dobbs described it in an article on Thursday. And as a member of The Post's editorial board, I also echo our Wednesday commentary, which said that former FBI deputy director W. Mark Felt, aka "Deep Throat," deserves to be honored for his role in bringing to light Richard Nixon's serious abuses of power. That honor, however, is not the full extent of Felt's legacy. Felt's devotion to J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI caused him...

Rather: 'Deep Throat' Showed Importance of Investigative Journalism By Jon Sarche Associated Press Writer DENVER (AP) - Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather said Saturday he believes that Watergate whistleblower "Deep Throat" showed the importance of investigative journalism and the judicious use of anonymous sources. Former FBI official W. Mark Felt revealed last week that he was the anonymous source dubbed "Deep Throat" who shared information with The Washington Post and helped bring down the Nixon presidency in the Watergate scandal. Rather told about 830 journalists at the annual Investigative Reporters and Editors convention that one of the most important...

Out of the Shadows Why the Deep Throat disclosures are good for the media—and could help Hillary Clinton shape a bid for the White House WEB EXCLUSIVE By Eleanor Clift Newsweek Updated: 4:50 p.m. ET June 3, 2005 June 3 - At a Memorial Day picnic in Washington, the talk inevitably turned to Hillary Clinton and her likely run for president. “What motivates her?” one man wanted to know. He wouldn’t think of asking that question about any of the male contenders for president. Wanting to hold the highest elective office in the land is a given for them, but...

Mark Felt’s admission in the July edition of Vanity Fair that he was "Deep Throat", one of those who supplied inside information to The Washington Post to discredit, disable, and destroy Richard Nixon, should be properly understood. Mark Felt, then the Associate Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was not a hero. He was a traitor. He betrayed his responsibilities to the President, and to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, from whose secret, confidential files he excerpted information for transmission to Left-wing "journalists" who sought to undo the results of the 1972 Presidential election in which Richard Nixon...

Too many public servants are afraid to blow the whistle when they spot terrible waste or wrongdoing in government. Other public employees, such as Linda Tripp, seek to expose government for self- promotion or partisanship. W. Mark Felt falls into an entirely different and dignified category. Felt, revealed this week as Deep Throat from the Watergate scandal, showed through his actions more than 30 years ago and by his silence until now concern for his country and an urge to do what is right. As the No. 2 man at the FBI, Felt had so much to lose and took...

Article Published: Friday, June 03, 2005 - 5:47:29 PM PST Attorney general not interested in prosecuting 'Deep Throat' NEW YORK (AP) The former FBI man unmasked as "Deep Throat' probably won't be prosecuted for sharing information with reporters during the Watergate scandal, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales indicated Friday. "It happened a long time ago,' Gonzales said of W. Mark Felt's conduct 30 years ago, when he was the No. 2 man at the FBI. "The department has a lot of other priorities.' Gonzales declined to characterize Felt as either hero or villain. "I will leave it to history to make...

-snip- Clinton said he is committed to the humanitarian projects he directs, including assessing the needs of the tsunami-ravaged region of southern Asia for the United Nations. He just returned from Indonesia's Aceh province, Sri Lanka and India. The Democrat explained the nature of his relationship with the elder Bush, whom he defeated in 1992. The former GOP president appeared Tuesday on "Larry King Live." (Full story) "I've always liked him. I've always admired him. I mean, he gave his life to public service. He comes from a family who did. His father was a distinguished senator from Connecticut," Clinton...

"Deep Throat" has at last come forward. Arguably the most notorious informant in recent history is former FBI official W. Mark Felt, and it's been confirmed by The Washington Post. Mr. Felt was second-in-command at the FBI during Watergate, and is now 91 years of age. In stepping forward, he not only destroys his reputation, but he takes a chunk out of the reputation of the agency that supported him and his family in a comfortable lifestyle for so many years. Had Mr. Felt used the lawful route to voice his concerns about the Nixon administration he might be remembered...

President Nixon suspected that the FBI's W. Mark Felt was "Deep Throat," helping the Washington Post on Watergate, White House transcripts show. In a conversation recorded on Oct. 19, 1972, four months after the Watergate break-in, White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman told Nixon a secret source had identified Felt as the primary leaker, CNN reported Friday. "If we move on him, he'll go out and unload everything," Haldeman said. "He knows everything that's to be known in the FBI. He has access to absolutely everything." Nixon, told Felt could not be prosecuted, replies, "You know what I'd do...

RUSH: Let's start with this Watergate stuff. Get this. This is a story from WBAL TV, Channel 11 in Baltimore. "The former FBI official who revealed himself this week as Deep Throat apparently also leaked information to The Washington Post about two of the biggest stories in Maryland in the 1970s. Post reporter Bob Woodward wrote in Thursday's paper that Mark Felt told him in the spring of 1972 during the Watergate investigation that the FBI had some information that Vice President Spiro Agnew had received a $2,500 bribe. The tip produced no story, but Agnew resigned in 1973 upon...

. . . it doesn’t take anything but common sense to realize, as one can now visualize the face on the Deep Throat painting, that the gallery in which it hangs must be full of other people. Deep Throat could not have acted alone. In yesterday’s Post, Woodward wrote nothing to even hint at how Felt could’ve had reliable information about the discoveries of November, 1973, when he’d retired from the FBI in June, 1973, nor the implications of that disconnect. . . . nothing about the army of invisible weavers who by definition must have been involved in arranging...

I hope Mark Felt and his family get the big payoff they want, but they've already hurt their chances by ignoring his famous advice as Deep Throat. They didn't follow the money. They didn't appreciate how seriously we journalists take our ethical standards. We are bound by the sacred vow we make to our sources: if the information you give us turns out to be profitable, we will keep the money. Mr. Felt's family tried profiting from his revelation, but the news cartel held firm. People and Vanity Fair both rejected the family's overtures and held to their policy of...

NEW YORK - The former FBI man unmasked as "Deep Throat" probably won't be prosecuted for sharing information with reporters during the Watergate scandal, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales indicated Friday. "It happened a long time ago," Gonzales said of W. Mark Felt's conduct 30 years ago, when he was the No. 2 man at the FBI. "The department has a lot of other priorities." Gonzales declined to characterize Felt as either hero or villain. "I will leave it to history to make that determination," he said, echoing comments by President Bush, who has also refrained from saying what he thinks...

The world according to Mark Steyn Most of your can't get enough of the Mr. Steyn in print, and so here's a transcript of his weekly stint on the Hugh Hewitt Show: HH: It's Wednesday, the first segment, that means Mark Steyn, columnist to the world, joins me. Mark, welcome. Good to talk to you. MS: Good to talk to you, Hugh. HH: Mark, I want to start not with Europe, we'll get there, but with a little inside baseball in journalism. A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times ran a story about Bagram Air Force Base in...

The revelation that Deep Throat was actually Mark Felt, the No. 2 man at the FBI during the Nixon Presidency, has focused new attention on the Watergate era and the political consequences that followed. But with the revelation that Felt was the informant that brought down Nixon should also come some attention to the investigations into the FBI and Felt's activities after Watergate and the consequences the nation suffered on 9/11 as a direct result. First, in regard to Felt and Watergate, the liberal media today are all lauding him as a hero because without him Nixon might not have...

E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend Version June 03, 2005, 1:16 p.m. Foul Felt Now he wants some money for it. Mark Felt has made it clear that he wants to cash in on this whole Watergate business, and why indeed not? It was thought for some thirty years that Deep Throat did as he did to preserve the honor of his country. Perhaps that was the precipitating motive of Mark Felt. But to agree on that point requires that you agree that getting Richard Nixon out of the White House was the supreme national concern, in...

ABC and CBS on Wednesday night devoted stories to discrediting the notion that former FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt behaved disreputably by giving information in a criminal probe to reporters. The stories began with denunciations of him from Nixon loyalists, then took on those claims. "Critics say he should have gone to his superiors through channels," World News Tonight anchor Charles Gibson noted before adding: "His supporters point out his superiors were in on the Watergate coverup, that he did the only thing he could to uphold the honor of the FBI." ABC's Dean Reynolds recited a long list of...

Deep-Throated Crimes and Misdemeanors Written by A.M. Siriano Friday, June 03, 2005             So now we have it:  the mystery solved, the real "Deep Throat," one W. Mark Felt—stoolie, turncoat, perhaps outright traitor, and, as Ben Stein has appropriately noted, about to meet his maker with at least one hand dipped in the blood of millions of South Vietnamese and Cambodians.   I was old enough to watch the Watergate fiasco unfold—just entering my formative years—and was subjected at school to the daily liberal mind-meld that painted President Nixon as the Supreme Villain.  Fortunately I had parents who had a sense...

History professor Joan Hoff of Montana State University, an expert on the Watergate scandal, finds it interesting that Bob Woodward is claiming that he had a close relationship with former FBI official Mark Felt, now identified as Deep Throat, when Felt suffers from serious health problems, including dementia, and can't deny it. "It's just like when he said he interviewed [former CIA director Bill] Casey when Casey was comatose," she says. Len Colodny, co-author of Silent Coup, about the "removal" of President Nixon, finds the identification of Mark Felt as Deep Throat to be rather remarkable: "A Deep Throat who...

Will Tom Brokaw, the Today show, Chris Matthews and CBS's Early Show offer a correction? As Brit Hume noted Thursday night, the Washington Post corrected a Wednesday article which reported, that on Hardball Tuesday night, Pat Buchanan had called Mark Felt a "traitor." The correction explained: "Buchanan said that Felt had no personal loyalty to President Richard M. Nixon, 'so I don't consider him a traitor in that sense.'" In fact, it was Matthews who first falsely claimed that Buchanan had tagged Felt a "traitor." On Wednesday's Today, Brokaw was appalled by Buchanan's supposed characterization: "I think Pat said yesterday...

For your interest, I just heard Lisa Bloom, sitting in for Catherine Crier on COURT TV. She announced that in the coming hour (5 PM EDT: 2 PM PDT), John Dean will discuss Mark Felt and the "Deep Throat" revelations. Char

The disclosure that W. Mark Felt, formerly the No. 2 official at the FBI, was Bob Woodward's famous Watergate source, "Deep Throat," has received a flurry of media attention normally reserved for such world-shattering events as a tsunami, the death of a pope or a runaway bride. Some perspective is in order. Admittedly, the unmasking of the whistle-blower who helped Woodward and Carl Bernstein, of the Washington Post, assemble key pieces of the Watergate puzzle is not without importance. A president resigned amid scandal, a constitutional crisis was overcome: It's natural to seek clues about how Richard Nixon's presidency unraveled.

Former FBI second-in-command Mark Felt, who recently stepped forward as Watergate's "Deep Throat," was a foe of both presidential corruption and domestic terrorism. It’s difficult to know if radio ranter Michael Savage seriously believes that 91-year-old former FBI second-in-command Mark Felt, freshly revealed as the Watergate whistleblower known as "Deep Throat," should be thrown in prison, along with his daughter Joan. During his June 1 program, Savage reasoned (if the word can be tortured into applying here) that since Joan Felt had long known her father’s secret, she had the duty to turn him in to the authorities for prosecution....

In response to my recent post, some question were raised (Idon't know why) about the religious persuasion of Mark Felt. It appears that he may be from a Jewish background, although, I thought J. Edgar was supposed to dislike Jews and, if that be true, it seems unlikely that Felt would have reached FBI #2 with Hoover biased against him.But, the comments raise another area were a rat/snitch.informer may have placed his distorted political reasoning above the oaths he took and the loyalty he owed his country.I suggested that Felt may have given/sold information/disinformation to commies, mafioso, Whitey Bulger and...

Vigilante: vig·i·lan·te; Pronunciation: "vi-ji-'lan-tE Function: noun Etymology: Spanish, watchman, guard, from vigilante vigilant, from Latin vigilant-, vigilans : a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the processes of law appear inadequate); broadly : a self-appointed doer of justice W. Mark Felt was the number two man at the FBI when he exposed what he new about Watergate to Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein. He held his secret for 30 years, which in Washington DC is no small acheivement. Recently, in an article in Vanity Fair magazine he revealed the truth. Richard...

It seems only civilized that every expiring political secret should get a decent burial.... ...So why did many Deep Throat researchers -- especially insiders -- reject the idea of Mr. Felt? Because much information that Deep Throat provided was a matter less of specific facts about the Watergate investigation than about the nature of the Nixon White House. Deep Throat talked about the clockwork craziness the White House had become, about the sound of Nixon angry and the character of individuals involved in the cover-up. These insights were presented with the certainty of personal experience. But they were not within...

Why Did Deep Throat Leak? Hint: It wasn't out of a sense of patriotism. By Jack Shafer Posted Thursday, June 2, 2005, at 4:28 PM PT The unmasking of Deep Throat by Vanity Fair bolsters journalist Edward Jay Epstein's outsider view that press coverage of Washington scandals depends as much—or more—on the motives of the government institutions and investigators involved in the story than it does the intrepid reporters "breaking" the news. A "sustaining myth of journalism," as Epstein wrote 30 years ago in Commentary about the book All the President's Men, holds that reporters pry secrets out of government....

WASHINGTON, June 1 - This was not the way that Bob Woodward expected to tell the last chapter of the Watergate story that he and The Washington Post had owned for more than 30 years. Mr. Woodward, a one-man Washington media machine, has long soared high above normal journalistic rivalries. But this week, in the wake of Vanity Fair magazine's disclosure that W. Mark Felt was his secret source Deep Throat, it became clear that Mr. Woodward had been facing months, and even years, of competitive pressure from an unlikely source, the Felt family itself. On Wednesday, word came that...

While many MSM'ers (sorry, most) are lionizing this guy as "a hero," someone who "did what he had to do," something big is being missed. Our side has pointed out that he authorized/engineered illegal breakins himself... And that he turned on the Whitehouse because he didn't get the top FBI job. Now think about that.... Felt became a snitch because he didn't get something he wanted! He was an opportunist, plain and simple (and it runs in the family, apparently, as they shamelessly say they urged the old man to do it so they could all get some money). Yeah,...

Mark Felt's emergence as Deep Throat has occasioned a prolonged Old Timer's Day of the American left, allowing various aging fakers to take one last, long victory lap. With relish they have renewed their intense moralizing about Richard Nixon even though their own ethics evaporated a long time ago. We overthrew a corrupt order, they in effect say by puffing themselves up -- an arrogance that would be more comprehensible if they hadn't proceeded to create a new corrupt order. The champions of Deep Throat built atop the ruins of Richard Nixon not a better culture but a base culture...

Just a few more thoughts on the events of the day: Now, we read that Mark Felt's family and Mark Felt put out their story solely to make money off it. So, this makes the family's karma even more unnerving. The father, patriarch, Mark, took out his anger and frustration for being passed over at the FBI, by ruining the career of the peacemaker, Richard Nixon. So, he condemned a whole subcontinent to genocide and slavery and poverty to please his own wounded vanity. (Maybe his nickname should be "sour grapes" and not "deep throat" because he has as much...