A Patriot Clears His Throat
After thirty years, we now know the name of a true American patriot: Mark Felt. And history will judge him that way.
Without anything to gain personally, Felt did his duty as a citizen and helped derail a corrupt criminal enterprise that was in the process of weaving its tentacles deep into the fabric of our government. Without Felt, the course of history--as well as our democracy--might have been quite different.
We could use a few like him today.
Without anything to gain personally, Felt did his duty as a citizen and helped derail a corrupt criminal enterprise that was in the process of weaving its tentacles deep into the fabric of our government. Without Felt, the course of history--as well as our democracy--might have been quite different.
We could use a few like him today.
posted by The Cunning Realist at Tuesday, May 31, 2005
22 Comments:
Amen.
We certainly could!
ditto.
Who will step up and be this generation's heroic whistleblower?? Hopefully, someone will before it is too late.
What a great story. If Felt had not stepped up, the coverup would probably have been successful. We might not recognize this country today.
History will indeed look kindly upon this man.
It would take a strong person to standup for country regardless of political affiliation especially in this current environment.
When Senator Henry Hyde said he was retiring, he was asked if Clinton's impeachment was retaliation for Nixon; he acknowledged such and later withdrew it.
If you notice how the party works today, if a moderate Republican, or any Republican so much as deviates from the talking points, they are systematically attacked.
What bothers me is the extreme politicizing of everything. So now even we have organizations like Sojourners saying God is not a Republican or Democrat. We could replace God with: Hollywood, baseball, stock car racing, etc.
If this Republican party, as is, had some problems with Clinton, surely as moral as they say they are, have to have problems with this administration. He's doing the same things and worse, even well before 9/11.
Let's forget for a moment, the secrecy, lack of transparency, saying one thing and doing another, outing a CIA agent, withholding documents from Congress on varies topics, currently Bolton;
But lets take 9/11, doesn't it boggle your mind that we are the greatest country, with the best engineers, CEO's, technology, workers, and renegade Arabs literally take over our skies without so much as a beep from anyone, even the likes of Norad; while our President who is suppose to be defending our country sits and reads a book to children about a goat.
I'm just saying shouldn't we measure our Presidents with the same stick?
I believe the reason the family came foward, his they figured if he was revealed while Felt was still alive they could get some money to pay off the grankids college debt. Perhaps, everybody should put a couple of bucks in an evelope and send it over.
I agree he did the country a great service, but I disagree that he had nothing to gain. Deep Throat emerged a month after J. Edgar Hoover died and Nixon wanted to appoint someone who was loyal to the administration. Hoover's men thought this was anathema. Felt himself thought he should be chosen as the head of the FBI. It was during this battle that Woodward started using Felt as a source. Woodward had covered a corruption probe into the DC police force right before Watergate. woodward was getting tons of info from an FBI source, because the FBI was interested in damaging the reputation of the DC police Force, because Nixon was pushing the FBI to be more like DC PD.
I think Felt deeply resented that the FBI was pressured to go after Nixon's enemies, but he also had personal motives of revenge.
Slate's Timonthy Noah, points to several articles that fingered Felt as Deep Throat. The Washingtonian in 1974 and The Atlantic in the early 90's give this background as the reason they felt it was Felt.
Any of you see Noah McCullough (pre-teen presidential "wiz-kid" and "Republican") on the Tonight Show. On one of Jay Leno adventures to historical sites, he said Watergate didn't happen. I hope that isn't part of the underfunded leave no child behind education plan. I read Bush is now using Noah on his Social Security tours.
It is difficult to think Nixon was not only a Christian like Bush, but a Quaker at that.
A modern-day Deep Throat wouldn't do us any good without a media outlet to follow it through. Ain't gonna happen.
Perhaps (hopefully?) you're right - but how do you know what the man's motivations were? You don't.
I'm not so sure that the way he handled it was the best way for the nation. Debatable.
Maybe it is the cynic in me, but from reading some reports and responses, I'm wonder why now and who paid what, and for what reason.
This is only going to divert our attention away from current important issues.
I think the fact that Felt's motivation was partially (mostly?) interagency beauracracy, setting up checks and balances with the competing interests of flawed men is the underlying brilliance of the founding fathers. Sure it would be great if men were always motivated by doing the noble correct thing for the greater good and all that, so everyone who always acts in this way raise your hand?
It is also good to remember that the thing that really ticked Felt off was Nixon's attempting to politicize the FBI, preserving it's independence was a pretty important principle, regardless of the purity of his motives. Sure Hoover was an evil man and probably had too much power, but at least he was independent of other branches of government and they all provided useful checks on each other.
We are seeing now the consequences of all parts of government lining up under one master.
I think Felt hated Nixon for choosing someone else to be Hoover's succesor and not him.
Anything else, including attributions of patriotism, is historical revisionism, you wonderful hypocrites.
Regarding whistleblowers, the news reported tonight that an auditor, a whistleblower, at the Los Alamos nuclear lab was badly beaten to keep him quiet and to prevent his
testifing before Congress.
I remember reading this story about the lab and the community and it is one scary place for a lot of reasons; basically doing what they want with taxpayer money and letting nuclear waste lay around, and guarding the area with rogoe cowboys. Now, because of their massive problems they are experiencing brain drain.
This is the kind of stuff that should be in the news, and to heck with Michael Jackson; or as Ted Turner put it, the pervert of the day. imho, whistleblowers are heros, and absolutely necessary for a truly healthy democracy.
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