'Deep Throat' of Watergate fame reveals himself

stuartfanning

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4597503.stm

So the secret is out at last!

Winters

"Deep throat"

Does he like facials too?

iceman_2001_ie

Winters wrote:

"Deep throat"

Does he like facials too?

lol

Yahoo News Coverage is quite concise I think. I was drawn to one quote though, by a gentleman called Colson:

Also surprised was Nixon chief counsel Charles Colson, who worked closely with Felt in the Nixon administration and served prison time in the Watergate scandal.

"He had the trust of America's leaders and to think that he betrayed that trust is hard for me to fathom," Colson told the AP.

What about the trust of the American people?
Unfortunately, to think that Nixon and all the president's men betrayed that trust, is NOT hard for me to fathom.

Don't get me wrong, successful and effective government often requires politicians to act, ahem, inappropriately. When this is done for the benefit of the people they represent, it is at least tolerable, at most laudable.

But Nixon was power hungry and unscrupulously ambitious.

Deep Throat is, in my opinion, a great American Patriot, and should be honoured for his role in exposing the crimes of Nixon and others.

TomF

My reading of the recent stories about W. Mark Felt, alias "Deep Throat", seems to point to a man who was disappointed and angry at being passed-over for J. Edgar Hoover's job as head of the F.B.I. and expressed his anger by secretly giving information to a pair of ambitious newspaper reporters. Hardly seems like a heroic performance now that the light has crept over the whole episode.

stuartfanning

Given how things were at the time he was definitely heroic, as he was obviously putting his career in jeopardy and his physical wellbeing.

Andrew 83

Whatever his motives for doing it he exposed a corrupt administration and played a large part in bringing it down. The importance of that transcends his motivation.

Goodshape

Agreed, he should be honoured. Though I very much doubt that will happen.

TomF

I don't think W. Mark Felt, former No. 2 man in the F.B.I., is going to have his name enshrined as a hero, unless it is by people who also reach to touch the hem of Bill Clinton's garment when he visits Ireland. I just read this interesting comment on the "Deep Throat" identity revelation:
http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/frum-diary.asp

"There is something disturbing is there not about a law-enforcement official becoming convinced of the guilt of his target, and leaking information against him to the media?

Didn't Clinton defenders rave against Ken Starr and his team for allegedly doing so?"
...

"...today might be a good day to recall that the techniques of cover-up used by Nixon were borrowed later by Bill Clinton. True, Nixon was covering up a grave political offense, and Clinton was covering up a tawdry affair. The Nixon administration was a somber and sometimes sinister tragedy; the Clinton administration an absurd farce."

Sand

Every government employee is not employed by the serving administration, theyre paid for and supposed to act in the interests of the people. Colsons comments reveal that he still hasnt learned a thing. He was supposed to act in the peoples interests, he didnt, he got caught out, and hes whinging about being betrayed? What about his betrayal of the people who supported and put their trust in him and the Nixon administration?

Theres a thin line between trying to reveal corrupt or immoral activities by the government, and simply trying to leak confidential information from spite or political calculation, but the result here was in the interests of the people whatever way you look at it. If the Nixon administration was involved in some deception/lie that was simply in their nations benefit, then theyd just be a typical government that would be punished or rewarded as appropriate in the next election. But this was something that was purely selfish and against the peoples interests, no matter how its spun.

I doubt Felt was some sort of watchful angel, its a fact of life that governments are not dudley do-rights, and I doubt he got to such a postion as he was in from being a really nice guy. But either way, he did the American people a service in revealing the corruption at the White House.

patto_chan

On a lighter note ...

I think it was back in the eighties when the one and only CJH was in power and there seemed no end to political intrigue (leadership challenges, 'GUBU', phone tapping etc.). I remember someone on the radio (or the 'wireless' as we used to call it back then) say:

"If the Watergate scandal had happened in Ireland Nixon would still be in power and everyone would know who 'Deep Throat' was."

:rolleyes:

Victor

Nixon was such a muppet he was probably Jim Henson's inspiration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon

"I'm not a crook" (At a press conference to AP editors - concerning watergate; perhaps the most frequently satired thing he ever said).

On April 3 [1974], Nixon announced he would pay $432,787.13 in back taxes plus interest after a congressional committee reported that he had inadvertently underpaid his 1969 and 1972 taxes.

mycroft

iceman_2001_ie wrote:

lol

Yahoo News Coverage is quite concise I think. I was drawn to one quote though, by a gentleman called Colson:

Tex Colson was one of the masterminds of CREEP (The Campaign to Re Elect the President) honest indian, and was one of the most sinister and unpleasant organisers of the campaign. Turned born again christian in prison.

TomF wrote:

"There is something disturbing is there not about a law-enforcement official becoming convinced of the guilt of his target, and leaking information against him to the media?

Didn't Clinton defenders rave against Ken Starr and his team for allegedly doing so?"
...

"...today might be a good day to recall that the techniques of cover-up used by Nixon were borrowed later by Bill Clinton. True, Nixon was covering up a grave political offense, and Clinton was covering up a tawdry affair. The Nixon administration was a somber and sometimes sinister tragedy; the Clinton administration an absurd farce."

Boggle........

Tom as always its nice to get your unique insight and vision of the attitude.

And telling of the quality of the national review that they could somehow drag this into clinton bashing.

How is the behaviour of the watergate source equal in seriousness to the charges clinton made aganist Starr. The implication that the watergate leak, being a good act, implies that clinton's attack on Starr was a slur.

Mind boggles, doing two similar acts (exposing criminal activity by Nixon) and (exposing Starrs vindictive persuit) for different reasons (demostrating the corruption of Nixon's administration) and (exposing the ruthlessness of the repubilicans attempt to destroy you) does not make them okay.

At this point in time, trying to turn this into clinton bashing is a fecking joke.

What Nixon did was unspeakable, what Clinton did was between his wife, his intern and the dry cleaning bill, and turned into a national absurdity by a man charged to investiagate Whitewater.

The Corinthian

TomF wrote:

"...today might be a good day to recall that the techniques of cover-up used by Nixon were borrowed later by Bill Clinton. True, Nixon was covering up a grave political offense, and Clinton was covering up a tawdry affair. The Nixon administration was a somber and sometimes sinister tragedy; the Clinton administration an absurd farce."

I suppose it is an irony that Nixon was brought down by a ‘Deep Throat’ while Clinton managed to get away with his.

sovtek

I read recently that Deep Throat was actually a composite of different sources (of which Felt was one) and the character was created for the book and the movie.
http://counterpunch.org/epstein06012005.html

Zombrex

TomF wrote:

"...today might be a good day to recall that the techniques of cover-up used by Nixon were borrowed later by Bill Clinton. True, Nixon was covering up a grave political offense, and Clinton was covering up a tawdry affair. The Nixon administration was a somber and sometimes sinister tragedy; the Clinton administration an absurd farce."

oh my god! the NRO wrote something bad about Clinton :eek:

:rolleyes:

what the very right wing Republican NRO fail to remember is that Nixon attempted damage the fundamental back-bone of US political intergrity through highly illegal and immoral actions. Clinton slept with an intern.

And despite not actually ever doing something politically wrong, immoral or illegal except lie when asked a question he should never ever have been asked in the first place (umm.. think Nixon did a bit of lying over questions he definitly should have been asked) the Republicians spent millions of tax dollars trying to remove Clinton from office, an over all action that some have likened to a political over throw