WSJ: Deep Throat's Legacy -- Watergate, the press and the Presidency.

opinionjournal.com ^ | June 2, 2005 | Editorial

[OESY]

...[L]eaking is not unknown in Washington, and in our experience the motives of leakers are complicated and often self-interested.

...It's fascinating to consider what might have happened had Mr. Felt helped to crack the coverup before the election of 1972, when voters could have had a say rather than have to endure a painful impeachment two years later. We will certainly be interested in hearing Mr. Felt explain why he acted as he did.

All the more so because the larger story of Watergate was about holding the Presidency accountable for the misuse of that office's vast power. One lesson we learned from the Nixon and Bill Clinton eras is that it is both difficult and painful to check a President, especially one abusing the Justice Department....

The rest of the press corps ultimately joined their digging, and Nixon came to have few media defenders.

That was all very different from the Clinton era, when many good reporters did similarly important digging. (Susan Schmidt at the Washington Post and Jeff Gerth of the New York Times come to mind.) But far from being praised for their enterprise, they often became pariahs at their own newspapers and the targets of White House attacks. Much of the media took political sides, rather than stick to their higher obligation of ensuring that a President doesn't misuse his Constitutional authority....

...In their zeal to be the next Woodstein, many in the press have developed a "gotcha" model of reporting that always assumes the worst about public officials.... The unveiling of Deep Throat... will do some good if it reminds us that the Fourth Estate's first duty is to report the facts.

[Noachian]

Felt's motives are not the traits of a hero. They are, however, a characteristic of a self-serving opportunist.

Mark Felt went to the liberal press out of spite, not because of heroic loyalty to an ideal. This is the fact that liberals conveniently overlook.

In any discussion with liberals about Felt's motives one has only to remind them that had Felt got his promotion there would have been no Watergate. Felt would have been Nixon's "man" and he would done all he could to cover that break-in up.

[Grampa Dave]

This Pap sounds like Al Hunt returned to the WSJ to write it.

[Steve_Seattle]

Why do you call this "pap"?

[KC_Conspirator]

The rest of the press corps ultimately joined their digging, and Nixon came to have few media defenders.

He did'nt have any to begin with.

[AFPhys]

In any discussion with liberals about Felt's motives one has only to remind them that had Felt got his promotion there would have been no Watergate. Felt would have been Nixon's "man" and he would done all he could to cover that break-in up.

Great one liner.

[Grampa Dave]

The unknown editor/writer is still paying homeage to Felt for bringing down Nixon. He/she/it's only complaint about Felt is that he didn't come forward earlier to keep Nixon from being re elected.

Anyone still paying homeage to Felt in an article or editorial is writing Pap as far as I'm concerned.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1414334/posts

Deep Throat and Genocide
The American Spectator ^ | 6-1-05 | Ben Stein


Posted on 06/01/2005 5:55:15 AM PDT by veronica


Re: The "news" that former FBI agent Mark Felt broke the law, broke his code of ethics, broke his oath and was the main source for Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward's articles that helped depose Richard Nixon, a few thoughts.

Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible? He ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POW's, ended the war in the Mideast, opened relations with China, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty, saved Eretz Israel's life, started the Environmental Protection Administration. Does anyone remember what he did that was bad?

Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable. He lied to protect his subordinates who were covering up a ridiculous burglary that no one to this date has any clue about its purpose. He lied so he could stay in office and keep his agenda of peace going. That was his crime. He was a peacemaker and he wanted to make a world where there was a generation of peace. And he succeeded.

That is his legacy. He was a peacemaker. He was a lying, conniving, covering up peacemaker. He was not a lying, conniving drug addict like JFK, a lying, conniving war starter like LBJ, a lying conniving seducer like Clinton -- a lying conniving peacemaker. That is Nixon's kharma.

When his enemies brought him down, and they had been laying for him since he proved that Alger Hiss was a traitor, since Alger Hiss was their fair-haired boy, this is what they bought for themselves in the Kharma Supermarket that is life:

1.) The defeat of the South Vietnamese government with decades of death and hardship for the people of Vietnam.

2.) The assumption of power in Cambodia by the bloodiest government of all time, the Khmer Rouge, who killed a third of their own people, often by making children beat their own parents to death. No one doubts RN would never have let this happen.

So, this is the great boast of the enemies of Richard Nixon, including Mark Felt: they made the conditions necessary for the Cambodian genocide. If there is such a thing as kharma, if there is such a thing as justice in this life of the next, Mark Felt has bought himself the worst future of any man on this earth. And Bob Woodward is right behind him, with Ben Bradlee bringing up the rear. Out of their smug arrogance and contempt, they hatched the worst nightmare imaginable: genocide. I hope they are happy now -- because their future looks pretty bleak to me.

[Grampa Dave]

Superb summation. It is excellent and simple.

"Mark Felt went to the liberal press out of spite, not because of heroic loyalty to an ideal. This is the fact that liberals conveniently overlook.

"In any discussion with liberals about Felt's motives one has only to remind them that had Felt got his promotion there would have been no Watergate. Felt would have been Nixon's "man" and he would done all he could to cover that break-in up."

[OESY]

The One That Got Away

Todd Foster of the News-Virginian writes today that he had the Deep Throat story three years ago, and would have published the explosive secret three years ago in People Magazine. However, several factors led People to decline the scoop -- mostly the family's demand for money, as well as the mental incapacity of Felt himself:

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. ...

Ultimately the story died because of money. The Felt family and their attorney wanted a lot of money, and People magazine - with my blessing - backed away in what would have been a case of "checkbook journalism." Reputable news organizations don't pay a penny for news. This also was during the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal at The New York Times. The ethical meters at news organizations were tuned to full alert, or should have been.

That wasn't the only reason Foster backed off of the Deep Throat exclusive that he had carefully cultivated. After People decided to walk away, Foster shopped the concept to HarperCollins as a book project. That would allow the family to take part in the proceeds without compromising journalistic standards or Foster's sense of ethics. He hired a co-writer to help out with the legwork and had high hopes of making the biggest splash in national politics and journalism in recent memory.

However, once he and his partner actually worked with Mark Felt, they quickly found out that he no longer had the capacity to make that decision himself. Foster describes some of their experiences with Felt, and how his story changed repeatedly due to his dementia:

Jess made three trips to Santa Rosa in late 2003 and sent me transcripts from his taped interviews with Deep Throat and the Felt family.
Ultimately, Jess advised me that we could not in good conscience go through with this book. The contract with the book publisher stated that our information had to be bulletproof, that we had to be able to prove Felt was Deep Throat.

It could not be done then and it cannot be done now, unless Woodward himself can produce documentation.

Even Felt himself claimed during several sections of the taped interviews that Woodward made up the source Deep Throat.

"I just thought he was making it up," the then 90-year-old Felt told my partner. ...

The problem with Felt is that three summers before, he had suffered a stroke and briefly was sent to recuperate in a convalescent home. ... On Nov. 8, 2003, Felt told my writing partner when asked if he wanted to come forward: "You can tell them that I am Deep -- that I was Deep Throat. The only thing is that Deep Throat is a little different than you probably have in mind. Deep Throat was not anybody real inside that was furnishing information. It was somebody confirming information."

Then Felt described his motive for coming clean then: "I guess I want some money for my family."

Earlier in that same interview, Felt said he didn't remember anything about Deep Throat, even saying at one point: "Well, I wasn't a Deep Throat."

Of Woodward, he said: "I don't think I ever provided information to him."

Later, Felt said: "I thought Deep Throat was another source entirely."

It was only after prodding and coaching from his daughter and the family's attorney, John O'Connor of San Francisco, that Felt even gave his lukewarm admission.


This puts an entirely different spin on Felt's admission and the hesitation of Woodward and Bernstein to confirm it. If Foster's report is correct, then Mark Felt has no capacity to make that decision for himself -- and it looks like his family engineered the admission for some financial gain. Given that Vanity Fair eventually broke the story, one has to wonder what they paid the Felt family for the exclusive.

It also becomes more understandable why the two Post reporters initially stated that they would wait until the source died to confirm the identity. Woodward had visited Felt several times over the past few years and must have known of Felt's incapacity. No doubt when he heard that Felt had announced his identity as Deep Throat, he and Bernstein must have questioned the veracity of the news, as Felt sounds incapable of making that decision, and probably the two must have known that it was out of character for a man who felt as conflicted as he reportedly did over his role.

Foster's article suggests that this revelation is nothing more than perhaps the last tawdry event in a tawdry scandal, where eventually no one was a hero and Felt's admonition to "follow the money" applied to everyone involved. (via Romanesko)

UPDATE: MS-NBC reports that Vanity Fair denies paying the Felt family for the story ... but it looks like they'll collect their money nonetheless:

The family of W. Mark Felt, the former FBI deputy director whose alter ego as Deep Throat has been revealed, appears ready to cash in on his newfound fame.
And if money is what they want, Felt’s family stands to reap a huge financial windfall, according to literary agents, who estimated Wednesday that a book deal could be worth up to $1 million.

“That is assuming he has a compelling story to tell,” said Glen Hartley, president of Writer’s Representatives LLC, based out of New York. “A book could easily be valued in the six figures.”

As news broke that Felt was indeed the secret source who guided two young Washington Post reporters as they uncovered the Watergate scandal, Felt’s family offered to sell family photographs — the first in an apparent flood of money-making opportunities.

Yeah, well, down the hatch.

-- Captain Ed, captainsquartersblog.com, June 1, 2005

[OESY]

From http://lucianne.com/threads2.asp?artnum=217183

Reply 16 - Posted by: YY4U, 6/2/2005 8:39:12 AM

Instead of comparing Felt to Ms. Tripp, compare Felt to Gary Aldrich, FBI Agent who didn't skulk around in the shadows but rather came forward with his accusations about the Clinton WH. The Leftstream media demolished Aldrich, especially after his partner was so seriously injured in a car accident that he couldn't back up Aldrich's statements.

Ms. Tripp was being suborned (sp) to commit perjury. Her choice was to lie on the stand and take a chance in getting caught or telling the truth and being dismissed as a liar. She chose to tape Monica in order to preserve her integrity. In return, she was destroyed by the same press that is now lauding Felt and the WH Smear Brigade.

"All the president's men" is oddly prescient in that the mainstream media could rightly claim that title in the 90's. "All the Democrats' men" would be a better title for the 1st decade of the 20th century.

* * *

Reply 37 - Posted by: YY4U, 6/2/2005 11:17:33 AM

Felt was never in any danger from the Nixon WH. Can we say the same for Aldrich? (His partner was severely injured in a car wreck).

Monica? (A black haired girl was shot during a robbery of the Starbucks Monica frequented about the time the story was about to break).

Linda? Perhaps she saved her own life, too. So long as she knew the story, she was a liability. Don't forget, Ms. Tripp also was one of the last to talk to Vincent Foster.

Hillary Clinton is about to run for the presidency. We all read novels. Figure out the plot for yourself.

[OESY]

The Damage Watergate Did To The Media

The ramifications of Mark Felt's revelation, that he was "Deep Throat," have been discussed at length across the blogosphere today. However, one aspect of this story that hasn't gotten the attention it deserves is the massive, long-term damage Watergate did to the mainstream press.

Howard Kurtz elaborates in his column today:

"But it must also be said that while Watergate and "All the President's Men" briefly turned journalists into heroes, they may have contributed to the long-term credibility problems of the profession. Too many journalists became sloppy with anonymous sources, some of whom didn't have first-hand knowledge of what they were talking about, and some reporters tried to pump every two-bit scandal into a "-gate." Having been lied to by the Nixon White House, journalists became more confrontational, more prosecutorial and more willing to assume that politicians must be lying. And the news business is still paying the price for some of those excesses."

Yes, an anonymous source may have helped to break Watergate, the story of the century, but that was 30 years ago. How many bogus stories have been touted by the media since then based on claims made by dodgy anonymous sources? Perhaps the two biggest scandals to engulf the media in the last year have been "Rathergate" and Newsweek's "Qur'an In The Toilet Fiasco," which both prominently featured anonymous sources getting it wrong....and guess what? The mainstream media is going to keep getting it wrong, over and over again, because the "biggest story ever" was based on an anonymous source.

Furthermore, Kurtz is right about the "gotcha journalism" that has become the rule, not the exception in the mainstream press. Most of the time, the MSM does a lousy job of giving context & pointing out relevant information in part because they're ideologically disposed to ignore inconvenient facts, but also because they're so focused on ginning up controversy and scandals.

In a very real way, that failure has driven many Americans into the arms of like-minded bloggers and radio show hosts who are not just coming at the issues in a more similar way ideologically, but who are willing to take the time to add more perspective and depth to stories.

Watergate may have killed the Nixon administration, but the mainstream media is still bleeding from its self-inflicted wounds, more than 30 years after "Tricky Dick" was run out of office.

-- John Hawkins, rightwingnews.com, June 1, 2005

[Spirited]

This criminal who felt he had the right to be judge and jury because his self interests were not served by those duly elected interestingly has found himself without ability to judge or even recall most of the pertinent things about himself or his life.

I figure he has begun to meet The Judge and that is all it takes. His family has yet to figure out that his definition of hero is not the final word on the subject either for himself or for them.

Stupid is as stupid does and it all shows up in the end when character sounts most.

[WOSG]

Very good points.

IMHO, anonymous source journalism is lazy, bad, journalism as a rule. As noted, most media 'scandals' and mistakes have to do with anonymous sources gone awry.

If a source is anonymous, there is no telling the bias and errors behind it.

[rwfromkansas]

There is nothing wrong with anonymous sources in themselves. Sometimes people need to be anonymous to keep from losing their jobs.

But, a journalist should never go with a story unless they can get other confirmation from what the source says. That is largely the problem with today's use. Any anonymous source is given star treatment without any skepticism.

Also, Deep Throat turned the media into anti-Republican bigots more than they already were since they enjoyed finding liars etc.