[Grampa Dave]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1349874/posts

Full-Throated Record
NRO ^ | February 23, 2005, 9:13 a.m. | Jonah Goldberg


Posted on 02/23/2005 8:03:08 PM PST by Checkers


If there is a Deep Throat, he should make the record clear.

by Jonah Goldberg

I have a request to make of William Rehnquist, Bob Dole, Henry Kissinger, Robert Bork, George Bush Sr., Al Haig, and a host of other Washington graybeards. While you're getting your affairs in order, could you please prepare an affidavit - or, even better, sworn video testimony - to be released posthumously, clarifying whether you are Deep Throat?

Let's back up a bit. As we all know, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein pretty much brought down the Nixon administration by exposing the Watergate cover-up. They then cemented their status as iconic American journalists with the book All the President's Men, which was made into a near-hagiographic film of the same title, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.

All the President's Men, both book and movie, were huge successes. What made them so, besides the engaging subject matter of high government misconduct, was a thrilling cloak-and-dagger plot. And central to this was the mysterious character known only as "Deep Throat." In the film, but not the book, it was Deep Throat who advised the reporters to "follow the money" in order to unravel the tangled web of lies spun by the White House. He was also the shadowy figure in a trench coat who allegedly warned Woodward that the duo's very lives were in danger, probably from the CIA. The implication was that Richard Nixon, the man who couldn't orchestrate a "third-rate burglary," was going to have the CIA terminate two Washington Post reporters.

Woodward and Bernstein have long promised that they will reveal the identity of this super-source on the occasion of Deep Throat's demise. Speculation and anticipation in Washington have been rising of late as the health of various potential candidates has deteriorated. Professional Watergate veteran John Dean recently wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times claiming that Mr. Throat is very ill and that his obituary has already been written.

Here's the first problem: Nothing is easier than pinning a crime on a dead man. Here's the second problem: I don't think Deep Throat exists.

I'm not alone. Recently, Fox News media analyst Eric Burns revealed that the late, great historian Stephen Ambrose had told him there never was a Deep Throat. Burns's evidence was secondhand at best. He said Ambrose had shared an editor with Woodward and Bernstein - the legendary Alice Mayhew - and she had told him that Deep Throat was a composite of various sources. Mayhew told Ambrose that the first manuscript of All the President's Men contained no references to Deep Throat and that she told them the book needed a stronger plot device. D.T. was the result.

This version corroborates that of David Obst, Woodward and Bernstein's former literary agent. In his memoirs, Too Good to Be Forgotten, he confirms that the first draft of the book didn't mention Deep Throat and that Bob Fink, the researcher who organized the reporters' huge pile of sources, notes, and articles into a workable manuscript, was stunned to discover the appearance of Deep Throat in later versions.

Obst also runs down several of the implausible details about Deep Throat in the book. Woodward was supposed to have signaled to Throat that he needed to talk by putting a cloth-topped stick in a flowerpot and moving it to the back of his balcony. If Throat saw the signal, they would meet at a prearranged underground garage. Inconveniently, however, the pot couldn't be seen from the street. In other words, this major Washington figure was supposed to drive to Woodward's building, get out of his car, and walk down Woodward's alley every single day. That's not very secretive behavior for someone trying to stay secret.

A similar problem is Woodward's claim that Throat would secretly mark page 20 of Woodward's home-delivered New York Times with a hand-drawn clock marking the time of their next meeting. But Woodward's Times was delivered to the building's lobby, writes Obst, "unmarked and stacked in a pile" before 7 A.M. How did Deep Throat figure out the right paper? And why would a super-secret, high-profile source devise a system that required regularly skulking in a public lobby before dawn?

Anyway, there are more questions and more answers to all of this. But I think history deserves a full accounting. Presumably, if Deep Throat exists he is aware that he will be named when he dies. So, gentlemen, why not get your side of the story on paper - or video - now? If you suspect you might be fingered for doing something you didn't, you have even more reason to get your version squared away.

Watergate prompted a generation of preening journalists to lecture America from a pedestal. The least Deep Throat can do - or, the least the leading Deep Throat suspects can do - is to let us know if the journalists belonged on that pedestal in the first place.

[mewzilla]

So why didn't Felt wait for Woodstein to out him? He'd waited this long.

[RightWhale]

Didn't Woodward say he would not divulge the identity until DT was deceased?

[kennedy]

From the Washington Post article:

Bradlee said today, "The thing that stuns me is that the g-----n secret has lasted this long." He was the Post's executive editor during Watergate and now is a vice president of the newspaper.

The thing that stuns me is that Bradley had all these years to come up with a soundbite and this was the best he could do.

[beyond the sea]

Dan Rather thinks Felt performed a public service............... Wow! I'm relieved!

[shellshocked]

*yawn*


Who cares? The "secret" was to be told some day. This is so baby-boomer and 30 years ago.

[Treader]

It will be interesting to see just what MF has been doing all these years and to whom he is connected.

[Two Thirds Vote Aye]

Do we care who the hell deep throat was? The Main Stream Media, and the VAST MAJORITY of the American 'people' didn't care that clinton was getting his @ICK sucked off in the Oval Office by a stupid slut, well after deep throat took place.

Besides the point that the American 'people' were too $$^AMN STUPID to realize that their great president cXXXton was importing Islamic Extremests INTO BOSNIA against the will of congress and they are now infesting Europe because of bILL clXXXon, thanks to the liberal voters that, OH, HOW I WISH WE COULD REVOKE THEIR 'RIGHT' TO VOTE before they GET US ALL KILLED.

[Southack]

So Felt is Deep Throat...meaning that Woodward and Bernstein *lied* about Deep Throat being a chain smoking (he doesn't smoke), scotch drinking (he drinks martinis), White House source.

Further meaning that W&B lied about Deep Throat being an "idealist" concerned about his country (Felt had to have done it for revenge against Nixon bypassing Felt for the top FBI job, as well as for Nixon purging the FBI of Hooverites).

Moreover, Felt leaked FBI file information...something that sent *other* Watergate players to jail.

Oh, it also means that Woodward and Bernstein *lied* again when they claimed that Deep Throat was "powerless" and had no outlet except to leak to the press.

Now watch the Corrupt Old Leftist News Media glorify Felt as much as they denigrated Linda Tripp for her whistle-blowing...double standards being their stock in trade...

[Pharmboy]

From Slate in '92:

chatterbox Gossip, speculation, and scuttlebutt about politics.


Why Did Bob Woodward Lunch With Mark Felt in 1999?
Was it to ask if he could unmask Deep Throat?
By Timothy Noah
Posted Thursday, May 2, 2002, at 7:29 PM PT


As Chatterbox noted yesterday, the best guess going about the identity of Deep Throat, Bob Woodward's crucial but anonymous Watergate informer, has long been W. Mark Felt, assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In his haste to write yesterday's item, Chatterbox failed to chase down a tip he'd received (apparently first published in the Globe tabloid) that Woodward actually had lunch with Felt within the last few years. Today's Washington Times explains (in its "Inside the Beltway" column) that this information comes from a new book by Ronald Kessler, The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI, due to be published next week. Like James Mann, who published the definitive Deep Throat piece 10 years ago in the Atlantic, Kessler worked at the Post during Watergate (he left in 1985), though Chatterbox doesn't know whether Kessler, like Mann, will speak out of school about what Woodward told colleagues at the time. Here, according to the Washington Times, is how Kessler relates the story of the Woodward-Felt lunch:

In the summer of 1999, [Bob] Woodward showed up unexpectedly at the home of Felt's daughter, Joan, in Santa Rosa, California, north of San Francisco, and took him to lunch, Joan Felt, who was taking care of him at her home, told me.

She recalled that Woodward made his appearance just after a mini-controversy broke in the press late July 1999 about whether Bernstein had told his then-wife, Nora Ephron, that Felt was Deep Throat. Woodward had been interviewing former FBI officials for a book he was writing on Watergate.

However, now confused because of the effects of a stroke, Felt was in no shape to provide credible information. Joan said her father greeted Woodward like an old friend, and their mysterious meeting appeared to be more of a celebration than an interview, lending support to the notion that Felt was, in fact, Deep Throat.

"Woodward just showed up at the door and said he was in the area," Joan Felt said. "He came in a white limousine, which parked at a schoolyard about 10 blocks away. He walked to the house. He asked if it was OK to have a martini with my father at lunch, and I said it would be fine."

A few caveats are in order. Chatterbox interviewed Felt in the summer of 1999, too, and found him fairly lucid, if annoyed to be asked once again if he was Deep Throat. (Maybe he had his good days and his bad days.) If Woodward was interviewing former FBI officials for a new book about Watergate, that would of course provide ample justification for Woodward to seek out Felt, even if Felt wasn't Deep Throat. (Felt was, after all, the No. 3 guy at the FBI during Watergate.) In 1999, Felt denied to Chatterbox that he was Deep Throat, just as Felt denied it, more recently, to Kessler (with the difference being that by the time Kessler asked him, Felt apparently had difficulty remembering exactly who Bob Woodward was).

Still, the timing is intriguing. When Woodward came calling, Felt had just been the subject of a flurry of stories about Chase Culeman-Beckman, a 19-year-old from Port Chester, N.Y., who'd revealed to the Hartford Courant that Bernstein's son, Jacob, 11 years earlier had blurted out at summer camp that Deep Throat was W. Mark Felt. (Click here for the full story.) Carl Bernstein and his ex-wife, Nora Ephron, quickly stepped in to explain that Bernstein had never told his wife or son Deep Throat's identity and that Ephron had just always guessed it to be Felt. But Ephron's intuition on this matter has to carry some weight, and it seems logical that in the aftermath of this awkward episode, Woodward would have felt the need to explore with Felt whether it was time to reveal their secret. Based on what the Washington Times passed on from Kessler's book, though, Kessler's evidence is not dispositive.


Timothy Noah writes "Chatterbox" for Slate.

[EdHallick]

Too bad this guy wasn`t a rat when Clinton was in office, but I guess when you have 20 billion gates as compared to one it get`s sort of overwhelming.

[tobyhill]

Must be nice to be forgiven for violating the trust of the government that signs the paycheck.

[No Longer Free State]

A couple of thoughts on 'Deep Throat':

First, wasn't Woodward & Bernstiens' first reaction at hearing Felt had been outted interesting? They denied. They refused to confirm. Further, they have lied about him in the past (little details like that he was a chain smoker). In other words, they covered up. Isn't it interesting?

Second, neither Felt, his family, the guy who wrote the piece for Vanity Fair, or Vanity Fair itself ever contacted Woodward & Bernstein for a reaction prior to the piece going to print. Clearly nobody trusted them to keep this quiet until the VF piece was printed, and surely with good reason. At the first hint that Felt was going to help someone in announcing his identity as Deep Throat, they would have rushed a piece into the next edition of the Washington Post as quickly as possible to get another 15 minutes of fame. So much for journalistic integrity.

Third, despite Felt's family's contentions, the man is no hero. He did what he did out of spite and envy. If he'd been a hero, he wouldn't have hid behind a couple of hacks for 30+ years. He'd have gone before congress, or openly contacted journalists to make his claims. No, he's a vindictive tattletale without the intestinal fortitude to stand up for a principle.

[DoughtyOne]

Like I believe anything this pond scum says. Sorry, but I don't trust Woodward or Bernstein. After the Clinton years, "for the good of the nation" took on a whole meaning.

These two are just the scurvey left that preceded MoveOn dot org and Michael Moore.

[WinOne4TheGipper]

Here's an oldie...

Professor, students ID Deep Troat (as Fred Fielding)

[birbear]

I admit, I'm not an expert on the whole affair, but since I just finished watching "All the President's Men" yesterday, I'm taken by one thing.

Deep Throat, at least in the movie, never really told Woodward anything that Woodward didn't already know. He gave Woodward direction, and told him to "follow the money"...but for those of you suggesting that Felt be brought up on charges, what did Felt actually tell Woodward?

And those of you making a stink saying this guy's not a hero...okay, I don't think of him as a hero either, but f***... the allegations and investigations into Nixon's White House were pretty damn serious. Using the intelligence arm of the United States to pry in on and subvert the democratic process. Pretty big f'n deal in my book. Pretty much something that has to be reigned in.

I don't mind the dirty tricks or anything, but when you're using CIA operatives and equipment to bug and overthrough the Dem. Party, you've gone a little power hungry.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

This ought to be good for 6-9 months of nonstop picking at Nixon's corpse by the self-important MSM. They have been dying to bring back the sixties. What better for moving the spotlight away from their plethora of recent scandals than to relive the "glory days" and bash old Nixon again.

That old sixties saw "credibility gap" is so much more apropos the modern MSM than it ever was as damnation of government (Johnson Admin) reporting as to the status of the Viet Nam "conflict".

Funny too that Kennedy gets us into Viet Nam, Johnson escalates the war, the Leftist MSM sours public opinion via falsified reporting, Nixon end it, and the MSM blames Nixon for the whole thing. Feh.

[F.J. Mitchell]

And all this time we thought it was a girl with the monica.........moniker of Linda Lovelace.

I can't for the life of me think of any reason why I should take Woodward's word for anything.

[MHT]

To think that a nobody did this because he was slighted. What a petty, little man. His actions proved that he didn't deserve promotions and access to even more confidential information.

What a jerk--and to think that he and his family and the rest of an adoring cast of sheeple think that he was some sort of "hero"!

[DoughtyOne]

Compare the respect Felt got to that of Aldrich.

A more clear example of the double standards of the left, and how 'supposed' conservative leaders accept them could hardly be made.