Clearing My Throat
Pour some coffee, it's about time for my little Deep Throat story. There I was, idiot stick in hand, a minimum-wager cleaning the beaches of South Boston, spearing whitefish and riveted by the real-world detective story in my back pocket:
A young idealist with the guidance of a mysterious cigarette-smoking man - wait, wrong conspiracy. Two young reporters, dissed by their elders, expose the cancer that's shot through the executive branch. Now it's coming back. This is when we wore white hats and the truth could take down the dark tower. Or is Watergate the story of two punks staining the highest office in the land with the help of a frustrated rat at the FBI. Yes, that's the scenario I'm loving on the 'sphere's wacky outer right edge. Or is it, 'who cares?' A few celeb-fixated 30-watters have trotted that one out.
Like legions, I went into journalism because of the story and the book. In the Woodstein U days, as an Atlantic Magazine story put it, there were more students in journalism school than there were working journalists. Yeah, jobs were scarce. Yeah, it didn't matter. We started anywhere. Walked a mile to school -- all that. But know that we wanted to uncover the crime, not just cover the police. And we still do. Idealism still burns in newsrooms, even if cost-cutting, short-cutting and careerism steal its oxygen.
So, that's done. Let's get to some more interesting views of the news that W. Mark Felt, former No. 2 at the FBI, was the anonymous source known as Deep Throat who helped two reporters uncover Watergate. The Philadelphia area boasts several political bloggers with national reputations. Here's the take of Billmon at Whiskey Bar:
It was a very contemporary story in that it was clearly less than about filling in the historical record and more about cashing in on it...
Felt and his family get a shot at a book/movie deal; the Washington Post gets to recall past glory (and use all that material it thought it would have to sit on until Deep Throat died) and various Watergate has-beens get to pontificate (or in Pat Buchanan's case, foam at the mouth) in front of a camera, thereby shoring up their honorarium value on the lecture circuit.
I'm going to keep quoting.
The truth is that we do have heroic whistleblowers such as Mark Felt today. Their names are Richard Clarke and Sibel Edmonds and Ray McGovern and Scott Ritter -- and even Paul O'Neill, the former Treasury Secretary.
You want well-placed anonymous sources? How about the military officers who fed CBS and Sy Hersh their Abu Ghraib scoops, or the lawyers in the Judge Advocate General's office who spilled the beans on the torture memos, or whoever leaked the Downing Street memo.
Read the whole piece here.
MyDD wonders what would happen if Deep Throat stepped forward today. Posts an editorial from Wasau, Wisc. that explores the question. Links editorials from across the fly-over.
The All Spin Zone hunts and gathers some beauties, from a Bull Moose take-down of right-wing revision to offering a link to Jon Stewart's lacerations at the Daily Show, via Crooks and Liars. The Zone then confides to Pat Buchanan, G. Gordon Liddy and Chuck Colson - all trying to rewrite some history these days - that he was old enough to care during the Watergate days. "You can't (barnyard epithet) an old (barnyard epithetter)."
and another aside I post Michael Ledeen from The Corner.... "I sometimes lecture on "journalism," and much of that talk consists of excerpts from All the President's Men by Woodward and Bernstein. In that book, they admit to a wide range of unethical and illegal behavior, from tampering with a grand jury to illegally obtaining and using private telephone records (a kind of private Patiot Act for the "Post"). Then I read from a section (pp. 184-192) in which they discuss an unhappy event. They had written that grand jury testimony had fingered Haldeman as a conspirator in "Watergate". Ron Ziegler, Nixon's press secretary, had violently denied it. Woodstein went back to their sources, and concluded they had been deceived. The story was wrong. Then (pg 192): "The reporters said (to Bradlee, their editor) they were virtually certain that Sloan must not have given testimony about Haldeman before the grand jury. Woodward suggested writing that much, at least, and acknowledging their error." No way, said Bradlee..."Bradlee then turned to his typewriter...after a number of false starts, he issued the following statement: "We stand by our story." And there's a footnote: "He was later to recall: 'I issued two statement in that one year...Geez, what options did I really have? ...I can remember sitting down at the typewriter and writing about thirty statements and then sort of saying, "Fuck it, let's go stand by our boys." ' " Which is why I have no heroes in this saga..."
a caller to the randi rhodes show yesterday made a great point on how Pat Buchanan, G. Gordon Liddy and Co. are all screaming their heads off on the talk show circuit about how Felt did this and shouldn't have done that, but that none of them have called him a liar. he told the truth and it took down Nixon.
Dude they all have admitted their guilt, they aren't denying Felt told the truth, but are making it clear he isn't the white knight the press are making him out to be. The funny thing is, you know Woodward probably had a very special obit on Felt already written (thinking he'd never come out on his own)basically making him a saint.
True, white knight he isn't, but a truth teller he is - this one time that is. I have no idea of his other actions as #2.
All the revisionist right-wing howlings can't erase the fact that these criminals were power-mongors who were doing whatever they could to destroy legitimate opposition so they could retain control of the United States of America. This was the greatest threat to American democracy in a VERY long time, and we were all lucky that they were brought down by Woodward & Bernstein, with the help of many others, including Deep Throat.
Thats all well and good Joe, but that DOESNT make Felt, or Woodward or Bernstein heores or ethical.
I think Mr.Bradlee is truly a great man. History will be very kind to him. He was awesome on Hardball last week and appears to be very grounded and extremely funny.
"The reporters said (to Bradlee, their editor) they were virtually certain that Sloan must not have given testimony about Haldeman before the grand jury. Woodward suggested writing that much, at least, and acknowledging their error." No way, said Bradlee..."Bradlee then turned to his typewriter...after a number of false starts, he issued the following statement: "We stand by our story." This is your great man Ken? I didn't know you had such a low bar.