Speculation can be interesting and fun, even if it is not always particularly useful in the end. I’ve however grown weary of the wave of speculation regarding why Deep Throat/Mark Felt did what he did. The biggest fallout I see is simply the MSM’s grasp at self-glorification in a post-Memogate/Korangate world.
This yapping grows tedious. Only Mark Felt knows why Mark Felt really did what he did, and even this notion is suspect. What this feeble and frustrated old gentleman says now is undoubtedly filtered through years of resentment, contradiction, guilt, and perhaps even encroaching senility. The money-grubbing angle is perhaps most disappointing. I like to believe that deep down he felt a need to confess his sin before God and man, lest he go to his grave with only the words of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to confess for him.
I was about 9 or 10 during Watergate. I remember as a young boy seeing some of the hearings but I didn’t really understand what was going on. All I knew was that the president and some of his workers did something illegal and had to resign — and then all hell seemed to break loose in America for the next, oh, six years. I haven’t studied the matter historically; all I have to go by is what the Nixon-bashing MSM has fed me.
Given how Watergate so shaped the future of American politics and the media’s relationship with it, a valid question to ask is: what would have happened if there had been no Deep Throat? What if that particular butterfly had not fluttered past WoodStein’s window? What historical storms would, or would not, have formed?
Peggy Noonan explored this angle in her 02 June 2005 OpinionJournal.com article:
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 [my link] said yesterday that Mr. Felt’s information allowed them to continue their probe. That probe brought down a president. Ben Stein [my link] 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.
Another thing that might not have happened had there been no Deep Throat or Watergate: redemption for some. Noonan considers President Nixon’s chief counsel, Chuck Colson:
Colson functioned in the Nixon White House as a genuinely bad man, went to prison and emerged a genuinely good man. He told the truth about himself in “Born Again,” a book not fully appreciated as the great Washington classic it is, and has devoted his life to helping prisoners and their families [through founding Prison Fellowship]. He paid the price, told the truth, blamed no one but himself, and turned his shame into something helpful. Children aren’t dead because of him. There are children who are alive because of him.
G. Gordon Liddy could perhaps be considered similarly, as one who paid his debt to society and has risen admirably beyond his past.
Many have argued that Deep Throat was incidental, that the fall was only a matter of time for President Nixon. Indeed one cannot defend the stupid and illegal acts he and his co-conspirators perpetrated. However, I do find Stein’s and Noonan’s comments intriguing as regards the larger implications: Felt clearly contributed to the evisceration of the Nixon presidency at a crucial juncture, during what for all intents and purposes had been one of the most influential presidencies in the 20th century.
My other main thought on this story is my utter disgust at how the MSM is reveling in their glory days — even trying to justify their continued existence — through the renewed interest in Watergate. Noonan observes:
Is the Deep Throat story over? Yes, in the sense that it will no longer be treated as a mystery. In spite of the million questions we’ll be hearing–and there are and will be many serious questions–the MSM will stick with the heroic narrative. Mr. Felt was Deep Throat. Deep Throat was a great man who helped a great newspaper put the stop to the lies and abuses of an out-of-control White House. End of story. Why? Because in celebrating this story in a certain way journalists of a certain age celebrate themselves. Because to bring unwelcome and unwanted skepticism to the narrative would be to deny 20th-century journalism–and 21st-century journalists–their great claim to glory. Because the MSM is still liberal, and the great Satan of all liberals, still, is Richard Nixon. And because, as Ben Bradlee might say, It’s a goddamn good story.
The MSM continues — energized by self-righteous hubris — to whirl ever leftward, tweaked by butterflies from a Texas Kinko’s here, Gitmo detainees there. Their hot wet wind attempts to redefine America as something many of us simply don’t recognize. Regardless of how much energy they can draw in from the Deep Throat/Mark Felt story, their ultimate fate seems certain to me: doldrums.
UPDATE: for a concise lesson on just how Mr. Felt is NOT a hero, read Mustang’s post at Social Sense (Cross-posted at Cao’s Blog).
Cross-posted at TMH’s Bacon Bits.
Nixon knew in October of 1972 that Felt—the putative “Deep Throat” acting against the oath of his office/position—had leaked at least some of the information to the press that eventually brought Nixon’s presidency down. Later, after Mark Felt retired (1973) and then even later was indicted for ordering warrantless searches on the Weather Underground, Nixon _testified in his behalf_.
Now, you tell me: who’s the real mensch in this story?
The Weather Underground, a 1970’s-era violent Communist entity, in total, was responsible for the bombings of the National Guard offices in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Capitol Building, the New York City Police Headquarters, and the Pentagon. Even today, members [of the Weather Underground] are trained in kidnapping techniques, bombmaking and building improvised munitions. Felt and fellow FBI man Edward S. Miller were convicted in 1980 of conspiring to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens by authorizing illegal break-ins and wiretaps of people connected to these ” suspected domestic bombers”. Even today, the Weather Underground is considered a domestic terrorist organization, much like the Ruckus Society.
When President Reagan pardoned Felt and Miller in 1981, he cited the pardons given to Vietnam draft evaders.
“We can be no less generous to two men who acted on high principle to bring an end to the terrorism that was threatening our nation,” Reagan said.
It is strangely the same argument that leftists are using against the patriot act, which is legislation that Congress voted on, not some barbaric arbitrary action of a military dictator.
The problem is that we do not recognize “terrorists” in the same manner as we do covert operatives of say the USSR or China or another “state”. We either want to treat them as ordinary citizens or as uniformed soldiers or as simply foreign citizens. The ACLU wants us to treat our national security and threats to it in ways that clearly make no sense in the spy game. Can you imagine James Bond announcing that he is seeking a warrant to investigate some nut job? He sneaks in without a warrant since warrants don’t work to stop espionage.
Cao, that was a valuable history lesson, and a wee wake-up call to the looney left who’d have the ACLU just as soon destroy our country through the USA-hating terrorists they strive to protect. Say thankee big big.