18 replies to this topic

[kyle]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8064563/

Many of you, like myself, are old enough to vividly remember Watergate. The revelation of the past couple of days has been nothing short of fascinating.

After joining the board and having the priviledge to interact with PhilOhio, I had developed a secret fantasy that he was "Deep Throat".

In all seriousness, as I read via Woodward of Felt's frustrations/motivations, I can't help but sense a resonance with many of the things Phil has voiced here on the board. Do yall agree?

[LIONHART]

I knew it all along........

[Walter63a]

It is highly interesting, to say the least, that Mr Felt waited until the 30 year statute of limitations (on any possible crimes he may have committed) date had passed, to come forward (so to speak).

[bug]

Felt=POS

Should be shot.

Bob D

[snipershot1944]

I actually hope that someday, in heaven or hell, J. Edgar himself will get to pass judgement on Felt.

[hawksnest]

Kyle: What do you mean PhilOhio is NOT deep throat! What if Phil tricked Felt into taking the fall?

[Gunner]

Left unchecked, Nixon would have trampled the entire Constitution. Don't forget, conservatives such as Barry Goldwater, Bob Dole, et al, said he had crossed the line and had to go.

[Walter63a]

Will the real "Deep Throat" kindly reveal himself?


"I will make it legal!" -Darth Sidious, Senator, Chancellor, Emperor and Dark Lord [Star Wars movies]

[John Jr]

I never thougth I would see the words DEEP THROAT on so many websites without something wanting your credit card...

[LIONHART]

I knew someone was going to say that sooner or later. Just had to be John Jr!

[Walter63a]

QUOTE (PhilOhio @ Jun 5 2005, 12:27 PM)

QUOTE (kyle @ Jun 2 2005, 08:53 PM) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8064563/ Many of you, like myself, are old enough to vividly remember Watergate. The revelation of the past couple of days has been nothing short of fascinating. After joining the board and having the priviledge to interact with PhilOhio, I had developed a secret fantasy that he was "Deep Throat".  In all seriousness, as I read via Woodward of Felt's frustrations/motivations, I can't help but sense a resonance with many of the things Phil has voiced here on the board. Do yall agree? Kyle, I am happy as a clam this week. Very perceptive. Nope, it wasn't me, but I would have done it in a second. Sorry I couldn't. And I voted for Nixon. I was overseas, witnessing other counterproductive things "your" government was doing, and lying about at that time. And I later did what I could, in a very restrained way, to fix it. I don't consider any of that a closed book just yet. Several of yesteryear's big names still need a bit more public recognition for some of their yet unrecognized accomplishments. Timing is everything. Today I read Bob Woodward's account of Mark Felt's technical management of their contacts. If you want to understand what I did for a living, just read it. Felt conducted himself in a totally professional, responsible manner. I can see he had good training and deserved to be at the top in the FBI. I would like to shake his hand. This is what character and integrity is all about. I also understand why he chose to remain silent all these years, and why he finally decided (after his daughter urged him) to go public before passing on. None of this is to suggest that I shared Felt's strong support of J. Edgar Hoover, who was neither all good nor all bad. He was a slippery politician, and not above abusing his office and doing bad things to good people. But Hoover did promote and surround himself with some very competent people of greater personal interity. Woodward's also a good guy. Read all that he has written over the years. Unlike most at the Post, he is actually a fair and objective journalist, nothing like his former leftist sleazoid boss Ben Bradlee, whose business was simply propaganda, to make Katie Graham happy (may she simmer on medium broil for 10,000,000 years). I might seem like a guy full of contradictions. Years ago, one evening I had 5 - 6 hours to privately discuss all sorts of past events and personal philosophies with G. Gordon Liddy. Here's another man of great professionalism, competence, good judgment, and personal integrity...and with an FBI background, like Felt. Yes, I know what you are saying about that last one. But under circumstances of that era, he did the what the courts thought was the wrong thing for what I think were the right reasons. He was working against some very bad far leftists in the Democratic Party, and he broke some laws in a way which may have seemed to him to be justifiable. I came within a hair's breadth of being in a similar situation, under orders, during COINTELPRO days, but the program folded before the assignment was finalized. So I have a lot of empathy. The Felt/Liddy parallels are many. I've never met Felt. Don't ever accept some popular image of either good guys or bad guys. Seeing how and why those images are created, we should instinctively know this by now. Bug, I regret to say that your point of view is 200% dead wrong. Yet it is probably shared by a majority of Americans, who have some strange notion that it is just plain wrong to drop the dime on bad guys who do bad things to everybody. I've never figured out the twisted logic here. It's like saying it is not honorable to turn in the heroin dealer who hangs out at the elementary school playground, but masked DEA strike team members who roll him up are heroes. Precisely why do you believe that a whistle blower is, by definition, regardless of the circumstances, a "POS", as you put it? Have you ever been personally confronted by a situation where you have secret knowledge of very bad things going on, have the ability to do something to stop it, and must make a hard decision on taking personal risks to intervene, or being a coward who does nothing...in keeping with your idea of the guy who does the right thing? Explain to me just how this works. I laugh my ejection port off whenever I hear inexperienced, unsophisticated people then launch into the standard parroted line about how one must do everything through established channels, the courts, ad nauseum. Doesn't work. Can't. Many choke points are set up within those systems to short stop political problems before they spin out of control. Mark Felt understood this, being on the inside. He knew that the only way Watergate was going to be properly dealt with was to dump the whole thing out in the open, by guiding the investigation of young Woodward, who he knew was a straight arrow who would pursue it to the bitter end. Public knowledge is the court of last resort. Wherever did we get this looney idea that it is wrong to turn in a scum bag, but F.D. Roosevelt was being a national hero when he shipped thousands of loyal Japanese Americans to desert internment camps during WW-II in his 1940s version of the Patriot Act? Is our national brain made of corn meal mush, or what? If the world agrees with your point of view, Bug, plan on everything getting steadily worse, and only bad guys running everything in the end. Your point of view does not allow for anybody drawing an ethical line in the sand and saying, "Beyond this point they are not gong to go, I am the guy who says so, and you can be 100% sure that I will do whatever I can to make that stick." Whiny weenies improve nothing. And do I or Mark Felt have the moral or legal right and responsibility to do what he did? You can bet Bill Clinton's sticky cigar we do. There is no honor in failing to flush an over-filled toilet. Bug, when you are faced with the hard choices, do the right thing. There is such a thing. Forget some whacked out, immature popular conception. It isn't necessarily what the smelly armpit TV football watcher crowd says it is...you know, the guys with IQs the size of their hat bands and an Amalgamated Steam Fitters Union bumper sticker on their rusty pickup. (Oops! I almost threw in something about Kahr Thompsons, new "L" drums, and Wolf ammo. The Devil was tugging at my sleeve again. Sorry guys.)

Thanks Phil,

for your insider's (Washington, D.C.) point of view. I was a youngster of about twelve at the time (1975). I remember seeing bits about Nixon and Watergate on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and hearing my parents and just about every adult stating that Nixon was evil and had to go-"get that bastard" was the sentiment. I've heard a lot of spin from liberals and conservatives over the last three decades and I think your explanation helps me to understand a little more. You have to realize that to most American's 'from outside the beltway' it is still a rather murkey subject, given what we all know about dishonest politicians and sleazy media spin dictors, pundits, talking heads and ghosts of Washinton's past.

Best, Walter

[21 smoker]

Phil,.. I share your evaluation of G.Gordon Liddy, one look at this American is usually all it takes to assess his integrity..I believe he always acted with this countrys`best interest in mind...however I don`t agree on your take of Mark Felt...the info he supplied and the timing seem to point at a self serving motive,,,you may have more insider information than most of us on this subject,but from all I`ve been able to digest over the last 30+years Felt just does not pass muster...the investigation of the breakin probably would have continued without Mark Felt`s leakage..who knows?...however we do agree on some points...the popular image of the good guys and the bad guys and G.Gordon Liddy...I`m just glad you and Liddy were on our side....

[full auto 45]

This is the only "real" DEEPTHROAT that we care about.

DEEP THROAT

[Arthur Fliegenheimer]

At the time Felt felt compelled to leak confidential information to the self serving Woodward, he was the third highest law enforcement official in the country. The traditional "whistle blower" is usually far down in the hierarchy of power. If Felt knew the FBI, Congress, CIA, and Justice were all compromised by the Nixon administration and, therefore, not to be trusted, he needed but make one phone call to his public relations department to alert the media that he would be giving a live press conference on the steps of the Capitol. Would this selfless act have resulted in the same outcome that his surreptitious garage meetings with one reporter is credited with accomplishing that being the resignation of a president? No doubt. But in this scenario, Felt would have acted out of character instead of spite and the two Washington Post city beat reporters would be recalled today, if at all, as Woodstein and Bernwood.

The real story seems to be the acrimony between Liddy and Dean. The media never wanted to pursue the angle about the call girl enterprise that Len Colodny proffered as the reason for the Watergate bugging in his book "Silent Coup."

As far as Woodward and Bernstein being the touchstone for investigative reporters back in the 1970's, their dubious legacy is the ubiquity of un-named sources in periodicals across the country.

And to credit either of these mercenary "journalists" as out for anything but money, a laudable pursuit in a capitalistic society, and their own self aggrandizement, both of them SOLD their Watergate notes to a college for $5 million last year, is as misguided as labeling the convicted felon Felt as a "hero." One might think that since they were employed by the Post when they were collecting this information that it would be property of the Post. But regardless of proprietary rights, the thought of donating "their" notes to the college never occurred to these bastions of "free" speech. Woodward, like JK Rowling and her "Harry Potter" books, is already posed to release a sequel to "All The President's Men" with stale and banal updates on Felt as "Deep Throat."

[bug]

I say again,

Felt=POS. Forgot to add self-serving, vindictive, gutless.

Bob D

[bug]

Phil,

I'll stick by my opinion as you will, I'm sure, stick by yours. I won't however attemp to insult you. That's not my style. There is no need for the "wise old sage" bit. I pushed by 60 awhile back and have seen a few things in my working years. I know my way around. I just seem to have a low tolerence for "ends justifies the means" whistleblower types. That's all.

Bob D

[Arthur Fliegenheimer]

QUOTE

So three cheers for Mark Felt. He's a hero, despite uninformed blatherings to the contrary.

Phil

But how do you reconcile Felt, your "hero," committing the exact same type of criminal act as Nixon (who may or may not have ordered the Watergate break in) when Felt ordered the "black bag" jobs of illegal wire taps and no search warrant break ins on the Weather Men? For this act he was found guilty of a felony and served time. Apparently his distaste for high level government criminal acts had a personal caveat. And Phil, Felt did INVOLVE other FBI associates to help assist him to make his clandestine meetings with Woodward in the garage.

I think your canonization of Felt is way too premature considering much more information will be revealed about what Felt actually did and did not do now that his family let the cat out of the bag for monetary reasons. Poor W&B and Bradley. They didn't have their cover stories prepared on how to respond to questions regarding information they got from "Deep Throat" when he was no longer in a position to know anything after he left the FBI. Several years ago Ted Koppel caught Woodward flat footed when quizzing him on his description of who "Throat" might have been.

[full auto 45]

QUOTE

Hmmm. Wonder if Machinegun Mike could use the contemporary Tiny Tim to pose with a Thompson in the men's room at a Greyhound station, just to add a little perverse balance?

None of that funny stuff on my calender!

[Walter63a]

QUOTE (PhilOhio @ Jun 8 2005, 10:35 PM)

But a good thing stands and survives the sunlight.  I'm guessing this one will hold up under further scrutiny, as more detail comes out.  Bug's "ends justifies the means" accusation is ludicrous, since it implies there was some wrongful means used.  There wasn't.  Only in his mind.  Bug clings to the grade school macho myth that anybody who tells the teacher which rotten little delinquent set the school on fire and laughed about it is a dirty rat fink and should be ostracized or beaten up.  A big part of our population never grows up and out of this, even until the lid is nailed shut.  It's something I've never figured out. So was it a good thing or a bad thing that somebody took it upon himself to say, "This is where it stops, and I'm shutting off Dick Nixon's water"?  Easy call, for anybody with a clear mind. Who cares who did it or how or why?  It got done, and NOT by any evil or destructive means.

Phil,

that is spot on, A-1, absolutely right. You have the 'conscience of the King' and the courage of a Thomas a Becket. It is admirable that you survived Washington with your ideals and integrity intact.

Best, Walter

P.S. I've always been intrigued and inspired by the story, the truth, of Thomas a Becket's (Thomas Becket to we moderns) life and death. He was a very loyal, courageous and principled man. However, when he believed the King was overstepping his bounds, he had the great courage to stand his ground on the principles he believed in. We don't have enough people like him today, because, as Phil has rightly explained, most would rather fall all over themselves to please the King (right or wrong). Take the time to read the following article on Thomas a Becket. You might enjoy it.

http://www.eyewitnes....com/becket.htm