[Starve The Beast]

Political events have a shelf life. This one rotted on the shelf before most of today's college kids were born.

Did anybody on the planet still care who Deep Throat was?

[NutCrackerBoy]

This is a pretty good Noonan.

[montag813]

Heroes pay the price. Mr. Felt simply leaked information gained from his position in government to damage those who were doing what he didn't want done. Then he retired with a government pension.

Sorry Peggy, Michael Savage made this identical point yesterday.

[Porterville]

He was a BF criminal. Nixon will be remembered as a martar sacrificed by the socialist in American government.... fantastic legacy.... the victorys write history, and the capitalist proudly won.

[elli1]

Ben Stein is angry but not incorrect: What Mr. Felt helped produce was a weakened president who was a serious president at a serious time. Nixon's ruin led to a cascade of catastrophic events--the crude and humiliating abandonment of Vietnam and the Vietnamese, the rise of a monster named Pol Pot, and millions--millions--killed in his genocide. America lost confidence; the Soviet Union gained brazenness.

Leading us to Carter, his thumb twiddling/ sell-out of the Shah of Iran...

[narby]

I have yet to see a commentator mention that if Nixon hadn't been taken down by Watergate, that Vietnam would almost certainly not have fallen in 75'. This deep throat bozo, along with Walter Cronkite and others, have the blood of 2+ million people on his hands.

[Khurkris]

Once again, I'll say it....the word "Hero" is being used much too often and inappropriately.

Its real meaning is being slowly cheapened.

...rant off. Thank you.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Nixon's ruin led to a cascade of catastrophic events--the crude and humiliating abandonment of Vietnam and the Vietnamese, the rise of a monster named Pol Pot, and millions--millions--killed in his genocide. America lost confidence; the Soviet Union gained brazenness. What a terrible time. Is it terrible when an American president lies and surrounds himself by dirty tricksters? Yes, it is. How about the butchering of children in the South China Sea. Is that worse? Yes. Infinitely, unforgettably and forever.

No further comment needed about the horror of abandoning the South Vietnamese as the Communist violated the peace accords and invaded the South. The Democrat-controlled Congress reneged on the promise of supplies.

What about dirty tricksters?

Search for Dick Tuck. To wit, one hit says, "Dick Tuck was a legendary political hoaxer who made a career out of ...By 1972 Nixon had decided that he needed someone like Dick Tuck. . . ."

Nixon had decided that he needed someone like the Democrats' Dick Tuck.

Tuck was a DNC dirty trick man and much celebrated by the MSM employees of that day -- the very people who despised Nixon for his dirty tricks.

But if only the Republicans' tricks are reported in the MSM then the Democrats never, never have to cover up -- the MSM do it for them.

[E Rocc]

He's neither a hero or a traitor (as some would claim). He fought back, succesfully, against a purge by an ethics-free President.

The irony of the liberals making him out to be a hero is the fact that he was a Hoover protege doing precisely what Hoover would have done to a politican that threatened his power....and they make Hoover out to be one of the Great Satans of American history.

-Eric

[Calvin Locke]

No one wants to be hard on an ailing 91-year-old man.

It happens practically everyday: Israel still goes after [former] Nazis. The FBI is digging up a 50 year-old
body to go after person or persons unknown that would be in the 90+/- age bracket.

I want to be hard on 91 year-olds that wreak mayhem by operating motor vehicles beyond their capacity.

I want to be hard on a former government bureaucrat that's seeking to profit off of notoriety gained from illegal actions.

From what I understand, he didn't let the system work before he started taking it upon himself to underhandedly
short circuit the legal system.

Then there is the culpability in the deaths of millions of people in SE Asia, and creating the situation for the
election of and idiot, James Earl Carter, which spawned the rise of state-sponsored terrorism, and the treasonous
William Jefferson Clinton, thanks to the self-importance of the fifth column, er, fourth estate that he spurred on
with his illegal acts.

[melancholy]

Hero, my foot! He brought down one of the best presidents we ever had. If Nixon were a Democrat, Felt couldn't have brought him down even if he wanted to because of the TOTALLY liberal media at that time.

Nowadays, if you break your oath, cheat, lie, steal, even kill you'll become a millionaire, perhaps a hero, provided that you're a Democrat!

OTOH, if you're a straight-arrow Republican, you'll be smeared by the media with no apologies required when you prove otherwise.

The Felt betrayal is another example of The First Amendment Protection Plan at work, Enjoy!

[Alia]

This is a very good Peggy Noonan column. She parses the matter perfectly in her conclusion:

Or as they put it in yet another John Ford masterpiece, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "When the legend becomes the fact, print the legend."

Reminds me of sci life before the electron was ACTUALLY "seen". Up until that time in science, "electrons" were a working hypothesis. The thinking was, "it has to be, therefore it must be". In this case, science community made a solidly calculated "guess" which improved scientific discovery.

I don't think the same holds true for the liberals, in this case. Therefore, have mercy, give them their legends.

[melancholy]

>i> Technically, it was illegal to talk about grand jury information or FBI files -- or it could have been made to look illegal.

Typical liberal double talk. Was it illegal or not?

Hey Woodward, spare me the "Technically, could have been made illegal". LEGALLY, was it ILLEGAL or not disclose or "leak" grand jury testimony or contents of FBI files?

Woodward, read my lips, IT'S STILL ILLEGAL except for liberals like you who re-write history and law through Clintonian English.

[OESY]

"Was Mr. Felt a hero?

"His motives were apparently mixed, as motives often are. He was passed over to replace J. Edgar Hoover as director of the FBI by President Nixon, who apparently wanted in that place not a Hoover man but a more malleable appointee. Mr. Felt was resentful. He believed Nixon meant to jeopardize the agency's independence. Here we have a hitch in the story. The liberal story line on the FBI was that under Hoover it had too much independence, which Hoover protected with his famous secret files and a reputation for ruthlessness. Mr. Felt was a Hoover man who joined the FBI in 1942, when it was young; he rose under Hoover and never knew another director. When Hooverism was threatened, Mr. Felt moved. In this sense Richard Nixon was J. Edgar Hoover's last victim. History is an irony factory.

"Even if Mr. Felt had mixed motives, even if he did not choose the most courageous path in attempting to spread what he thought was the truth, his actions might be judged by their fruits. The Washington Post said yesterday that Mr. Felt's information allowed them to continue their probe. That probe brought down a president. Ben Stein is angry but not incorrect: What Mr. Felt helped produce was a weakened president who was a serious president at a serious time. Nixon's ruin led to a cascade of catastrophic events--the crude and humiliating abandonment of Vietnam and the Vietnamese, the rise of a monster named Pol Pot, and millions--millions--killed in his genocide. America lost confidence; the Soviet Union gained brazenness. What a terrible time. Is it terrible when an American president lies and surrounds himself by dirty tricksters? Yes, it is. How about the butchering of children in the South China Sea. Is that worse? Yes. Infinitely, unforgettably and forever."

[x]

Peggy's right. The further we get from Watergate the more Woodward, Bernstein, and "Deep Throat" looks like the usual Washington careerism and in-fighting. What brought Nixon down is going to be seen more in a realpolitik way as a struggle of factions, rather than a triumph of idealism.

I don't know about Chuck Colson as a hero or great man of Watergate, though. He may have redeemed himself later, but in the Nixon years he was certainly a hatchet man. Whatever his later status, he didn't stand higher than anyone else in the early Seventies.

[x]

Peggy's right. The further we get from Watergate, the more Woodward, Bernstein, and "Deep Throat" look like the usual Washington careerism and infighting. The battles of those years are going to be understood less as a triumph of idealism and more as a struggle of competing factions. In the years to come we'll learn more about Woodward's intelligence connections that will confirm that impression.

But Chuck Colson as the hero or great man of Watergate? Colson may have redeemed himself later, but in the Nixon years he was quite the hatchet man. Whatever his later status, he was no hero in the early Seventies.

[OESY]

Liberal Dinosaurs On Parade


I agree wholeheartedly with Polipundit’s excellent post on Watergate below. La Shawn Barber also has excellent commentary today about the liberals on television all week reliving the “Golden Age of Journalism” (she also has plenty of links to those writing about other aspects of the story).

I have found it almost unbearable at times to watch the liberal dinosaurs saying that Deep Throat saved the republic. On last night’s special edition of Hardball, Ben Bradlee was interviewed by Andrea Mitchell:


MITCHELL: How mean and ugly was it? We now see some of these post-Watergate people as pundits and commentators. And it seems there‘s sort of a moral equivalency. How does that make you feel?

BEN BRADLEE, FORMER “WASHINGTON POST” EDITOR: It makes me sick to hear Gordon Liddy talk about morality in government. He hasn‘t been out of jail all that long. I mean, I—it‘s—it‘s just—it makes me sick.

And why—why people—why the press goes to him to get quotes about the morality of—the morality of it all surprises me. Chuck Colson, the same way.

Bradlee’s wife, Sally Quinn (who looked amazingly young, if a little more like Joan Rivers than I remember her ever looking), took things up a notch with something she said on an edition of Hardball hosted by David Gregory last night:

GREGORY: Sally Quinn, there‘s a contrary view to the view about Mark Felt over the last couple of days. And that is, did he really do the right thing? I mean, we‘re reporters. We want information. But was leaking to the “Washington Post” the right way to handle his grievances?

QUINN: Well, you know, leaking is really an honorable tradition in Washington. People leak stories so that they will get out and so the public will be informed and often for the better.

I think Mark Felt is a hero, because he really risked his job, and some might even say his life, by telling Bob Woodward the things that he told him and by steering him in the right direction. I mean, we had a very, very corrupt government. And they were not beyond, some would say—and there were some crazies—they were not beyond murder.

And I think that this country would have been absolutely devastated if Nixon had continued on and Watergate had not been found out. I think…

* * *

Ok, this one frankly had me yelling at the very young-looking Sally Quinn on my television screen. Leaking wasn’t considered so honorable during Bill Clinton’s administration, or during the recent judicial committee memo situation, now was it? About half of the stories I recall on those subjects practically dismissed any substance because the information was obviously leaked by those with an agenda. Of course, that kind of coverage ceased when Paul O’Neill and Joe Wilson had books to hawk.

I don’t even know what to say about Quinn’s statement about the very, very corrupt Nixon government and the crazies that were not beyond murder. As for the country being “devastated” if Nixon had continued on and Watergate not been found out – puh leeze, lady. Could the woman be any more insulated and cocooned in her liberal Washington establishment mindset? I don’t think so.

And another thing…Sally Quinn also discussed how exciting it was to be in the Washington Post news room all those years ago when they were constantly breaking news. There are fewer and fewer stories these days being broken by newspapers in this era of the 24 hour cable news channels and the internet. This is why I believe the term “dinosaur” is entirely appropriate.

-- Lorie Byrd, polipundit.com, June 2, 2005

[nutmeg]

ping! (Peggy Noonan article)

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