[Note: The following is a post based in part on a story that only lasted a few hours. In retrospect, all my analysis of Woodward and Bernstein’s reticence is besides the point now, and all my frothing accusations are… unecessary. Possibly “unkind,” or perhaps even “wrong.”
I’m going to leave the post up, though. Partly because I don’t have the resources to stonewall this thing. But mostly because I believe in my deepest heart of hearts that one should never violate the sanctity of a cheap oral sex joke.]
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The notorious “Deep Throat” has revealed himself. Or perhaps he hasn’t. As I write this, the only thing that’s clear is that this flurry of press is sure to provoke an outcry from thousands of honest, hard-working Americans who aren’t looking for photos of a 91 year-old retired FBI official when they Google the phrase.
Somewhat bizarrely, both Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are refusing to confirm former FBI #2 W. Mark Felt’s confession, saying that they’re sticking to their solemn vow not to reveal Deep Throat’s true identity until he’s dead. Why stick to this pledge when the man himself has outed himself? There are a few intriguing possibilities:
1) Felt isn’t Deep Throat! The famously reticent ex-G-Man has become a hopeless publicity hound in his dotage, and he’s making this up in the hopes of landing his own reality TV series.
2) Woodward and Bernstein are Dicks! The iconic scoopers are so peeved at being scooped by Vanity Fair that they’re grabbing a page from their former targets’ playbook and stonewalling the story. They’ve doubtless already finished their tell-all book and were planning its publication for 25 minutes after Felt’s death, and this story more or less consigns the book to the remainders bin.
3) There’s more than one Deep Throat! Woodward and Bernstein have always said that Deep Throat was a single individual, but it turns out they were sheltering multiple moles. This seems quite possible, but as it’s the least interesting option, we shouldn’t spend a lot of time on it.
4) Woodward and Bernstein are really just sticking to their “journalistic principles.” That’s their story at the moment, and some of the pundits I’m watching on TV right now seem to buy it. The fact that this makes absolutely no sense from a journalistic principles standpoint won’t interfere with this argument getting plenty of airtime. I’d love to have heard the phone conversation wherein Mr. Felt begged Bob Woodward to corroborate his confession and was told “Nope, sorry. Not until you’re dead. Rules are rules.”
I’m betting on option #2.
Watergate seems so quaint nowadays, as I’m sure I’m not the first to point out. We live in an era where our nation re-elects a President who led us to war under false pretenses. We live in an era where impeachment only comes into play if the “Deep Throat” in question refers to Linda Lovelace’s much-Googled talent. We don’t mind lies and cheating anymore, because we’re savvy enough to know that Everybody Does It. We know that the intricacies of governance are so complex and dirty these days that the full truth is Too Much For the Average Guy To Understand, as any savvy insider on any barstool in Armerica will cheerfully tell you. We’re in the know, and we know that even if we knew what we don’t know we wouldn’t know what knowing the new knowledge really meant.
We didn’t learn from Watergate, our government did. Revelations twice as damning as Deep Throat’s mutterings emerge daily in black-and-white declassified memos, and they’re fodder for the spin machines rather than public outrage. Whether its about illegal arms dealing or shady electoral shenanigans or the bait-and-switch of the present war, today’s scoops are only fuel for yet another round of “Did Not / Did Too / Well Even If He Did, We All Know That That’s How It Works Nowadays.” The only real ways that our government could have protected itself against another Watergate was to either clean up its act or systematically undermine the power, influence and perceived trustworthiness of the press. Hmmm…
And we’ve helped ‘em do it, gladly participating in the tearing down of the fourth estate for short-term gains. Fans of cosmic irony will note that the legacy of Washington’s Deep Throat is much more closely related to the film he was capriciously named for: We suck. They can make us swallow anything now, because we’ve suppressed our gag reflex.
We’ve blown it.
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[Update: Bob Woodward has confirmed that Felt is “Deep Throat.” Kudos to him. His initial impulse proved to be far too ridiculous to maintain, plus he was missing out on countless hours of TV time while other people spilled the beans on his story. I’d lay cash money that he’s in a speeding limo heading towards a studio even as I type…]
Fanny Roborat
17 comments
Skerlnik
May 31, 2005 at 5:02 pm
1The average American today knows/cares more about Trot Nixon, rather than Richard Nixon. We just don’t have any righteous indignation left to vent, it seems. I think the country’s just tired.
BushCo has done things orders of magnitude worse than Nixon did, yet nobody is seriously calling for resignations or impeachments. We’ve lowered our expectations of ethical behavior in our leaders to such an amazing degree.
Personally, I have doubts that we are intelligent enough anymore, as a nation, to even really understand the rapid-fire, 24-hr frothing political maelstrom that is modern news. Nobody I have talked to understood or cared about the Filibuster Thing, or Judicial appointments, etc. We can’t really even synthesize the latest frantic. bombshell revelation before the Next Big Issue hits us. Is it any wonder why the British memo hit page B17 with barely a whimper?
Deep Throat indeed. The only Deep Throat I see is our collective, national yawn.
dee
May 31, 2005 at 7:22 pm
2I remember watching John Chancellor every evening during Watergate, watching the pain on his face as he reported that day’s revelation of the Nixon administration’s attempt to circumvent the Constitution. He took it personally.
Compare that to the current crop of “journalists.” Yes, Adam, depsite your protestations to the contrary, except for two or three shining examples (Seymour Hersh, Frank Rich)the fourth estate in this country has rolled over and played dead with this administration. Apparently they are no longer teaching the art of the follow up question in J School.
So yes, we have come to believe that trampling on the Constitution is business as usual and Skerlnik, your observation about our collective national yawn is spot on.
How does that mantra go again, Murray?
Raymond Chen
May 31, 2005 at 7:35 pm
3I vote 4: It’s the game of “no comment” in reverse.
Q: Do you have a crush on Michael?
A: No way!
Q: Do you have a crush on Ben?
A: Ugh, absolutely not!
Q: Do you have a crush on George?
A: I’m not tellin’.
Here, the game is in reverse. You just get all your likely suspects to step forward and claim to be D.T. and see which one elicits a response other than “no comment”.
(Hm, looks like Woodward fell for it.)
Adam Felber
May 31, 2005 at 8:45 pm
4Dee -
Aw no y’don’t… I won’t be backed into that corner, not on my very own site!.
My earlier protestations weren’t that a virtuous, dogged media were actually doing a great job in the face of adversity. They’re credulous and cowed, as I said at the outset. And as I said today, they’ve been effectively neutered and discredited in the eyes of the American public.
What I was griping about two weeks ago is the way the left has added to the chorus of “Bias!” and “Dishonesty!” and “Incompetence,” tarring entire operations rather than specific reporters or commentators. Many lefty blogs are now proclaiming the MSM dead (and good riddance to ‘em!). Rather than defending an important institution that the right has hobbled, we’re defiantly kicking away at the other leg.
I think that’s a tragic, shortsighted error.
The systematic destruction of the media’s credibility makes a future heroic moment like Watergate much less likely. I don’t believe that this is an accident. If we don’t defend, badger, encourage, and galvanize the press (rather than lodge broad-stroke insults and dismissive condemnations), it’ll be completely impossible.
I’m not advocating cheerleading or the overlooking of misdeeds. Just that we remember our principles and our interests. Your citation of Frank Rich and Seymour Hersh is important - one’s an op-ed writer, the other an investigative reporter. The right would rather we forget the difference and admit that they’re all a bunch of biased opinion-meisters, that all of them have an agenda that makes them unreliable as sources of information, that there’s no such thing as journalistic standards or honest news reporting.
We know the difference. We have to INSIST upon the difference. Instead, we’re blasting and blurring the institution of journalism itself as though we’re a bunch of screamin’ Freepers. I guess that we’re hoping that after we’ve helped everyone see that no newspaper can be trusted something else will come along that’ll get the word out about what’s really going on. But there isn’t anything else.
It’s not just that there aren’t any Woodward&Bernsteins out there today. We oughta ask ourselves how they’d be received if they WERE here. To me, that needs to be fixed.
Now, could someone help me down? I didn’t realize this soapbox was so damned high…
Pete IVDL
May 31, 2005 at 9:31 pm
5Are we missing the forest for the trees here? I’m not much of a “big picture” kind of guy, I’m way too naïve and technical for that. Having said that, I need to get this off my fishbelly-white chest…
We ain’t thinking holistically enough. Have the journos really rolled over and played dead just because they’ve been discredited by repeated butt-reamin’ administrations? Well, yeah, partly. But wait, there’s more.
In the current “business is all” climate, I don’t think many journos have the option of writing what’s true. They have to pay for cable, health insurance, and dunny paper too. So what do they write? What they think will make it into print. I’m not saying all journos, I’m just saying the run-of-the-mill starry-eyed, change-the-world cub reporter is going to learn early on what their editors will like. And that’s what the Publisher will like, which is really what the Publisher knows will sell newsprint. Not news, but stories. It doesn’t matter if it’s not true, as long as it’s in print by the deadline.
Journalistic Integrity? “Shoot, we’ll just hire another Starry-Eyed Reporter (SER) to replace him/her once this one’s discredited enough. How will we pay for the lawsuit? Have you seen our stock price this morning? We can buy anything. What do we do with our ex-Senior SER? They can go work for the tabloids. Oh wait, we own the tabloids…”
Adam, as usual, is spot on : we can’t afford to kick the crutch out from what journalistic integrity there is left. And dee’s right too - assuming they’re still teaching about followup questions in journo school. But then, can you imagine the irony in making it out of journo school with straight A’s, getting a sweet job as Whitehouse reporter, then, getting the chance to ask the Big Question, being told that all your questions will be vetted for suitability - Patriotism/Security/Bias/…. I’d hate THAT job.
But I have to say, if anyone can stand a kickin’, it’s the fourth estate. Maybe they’re all in camouflage, writing what Rupert and Conrad et. al want, while secretly building an army of lethal SER clones, ready to question the administration to death… Like I said, I’m naïve enough to want to believe that.
You’re right, Adam, this is one hell of a cool soapbox. I think I’m getting a nosebleed…
JB
May 31, 2005 at 10:34 pm
6Old news but this is from the Washington Post:
“Woodward agreed to confirm his source’s identity despite skepticism that the former FBI official was competent to decide to change the ground rules of their secret relationship. Felt has been in declining health since suffering a stroke in 2001.”
A legitimate reason to pause before confirming the story?
hedera
June 1, 2005 at 12:37 am
7OK, great brains here - assume all this is true. Which is hard to argue against. The fourth estate has turned into a propaganda machine, and not even a very efficient one. There’s no fourth estate to check the government any more (which was what Jefferson saw as its role).
Now what?
Bob
June 1, 2005 at 2:36 am
8Yes, I get incredibly frustrated with mainstream media reporting. But, God bless ‘em, some mainstream reporters actually get up out of their chairs, leave the building, and find things out. For every Judy Miller taking dictation from Ahmed Chalabi, there’s a Seymour Hersh casting a skeptical eye on the world.
Well, OK, maybe it’s 50 Millers to every Hersh, but that’s still better than nothing.
On a side note, do you get the feeling that this story wouldn’t have broken now unless Felt’s daughter was looking for some cash? She comes across as a real piece of work.
Mary
June 1, 2005 at 8:51 am
9I hate to point this out but the starry eyed reporters who went to J school because they wanted to be like Bob & Carl are now in their 50s. Most are editors and columnists by now. Few are still on the “beat”.
As for the new kids on the block? They are being taught the ethics of journalism. Unfortunately, their personal ethics were shaped long before they got into J school. Those with a solid foundation are doing good work. The others are bringing down the wrath of both the Right and Left on everyone. When the sith hits the fan, both the righteous and unrighteous get sullied.
Murray
June 1, 2005 at 10:35 am
10Best I can tell, both Dee and Adam are right.
The problem is that the media are sniveling cowards.
The problem is that the corrupt administration is intentionally discrediting the media to get away with war crimes.
But it’s probably even more complex and confusing than just that.
Right wingers have a different mind set than us liberals. They believe in a “Strict Father” view of life. People in authority need to punish infractions, sometimes even harshly. This FORCES the recipient to walk the straight and narrow. Thing are either good or bad, there is no middle ground.
Think how Chaney, Rumsfelt and Bolton work.
(I just heard on the radio that Pat Buchannon called Felt a trator. But isn’t that exactly what you would expect from him?)
Liberals have a “Nurturing Father” view. We believe that people are better helped than punished, there are often extenuating circumstances and that problems are not black and white.
With few exceptions, right wingers are the ones most forceful in projecting their views. It’s in their nature. Liberals are more likely to see two sides and less likely to be aggressive. It’s what we do. We also like to use satire to point out problems, (think O Riley and Franken). (Of course the best satire is found here)
It was only 8 years ago that the right was championing the media against Clinton, and pushed their agenda up to the point of impeachment for something that wasn’t a crime or harmed anyone.
Even while the right was storming around in a self-righteous, bizerk, fervor on how Clinton was too immoral to be president, Bill maintained a public approval ratings in the 70s.And now the righteous right has the media cowering in the corner, yet Bush still has the lowest 2nd term approval ratings in modern history. Go figure. Maybe it has to do with peace and prosperity, or maybe some things are too big to spin away.
The right will always be able to out shout us. We will always have intelligence, wit and usually the truth, on our side. Americans will continue to not know or care.
M’s M
R are R
D are G
A are I
Harold
June 1, 2005 at 1:19 pm
11“Rather than defending an important institution that the right has hobbled, we’re defiantly kicking away at the other leg.”
Hmm…sounds kinda like our national attitude towards public education. Do you think there might be a connection?
Elliott
June 1, 2005 at 1:53 pm
12O.K. I know this is just a silly pop culture reference, but I am reminded of the line in the new Star Wars movie when Obi-Wan and Anakin “W.” Skywalker were about to fight:
Anakin Skywalker: Don’t lecture me, Obi-Wan. I see through the lies of the Jedi. I do not fear the dark side as you do. I have brought peace, justice, freedom and security to my new Empire.
Obi-Wan: Your new Empire?
Anakin Skywalker: Don’t make me kill you.
Obi-Wan: Anakin, my allegiance is to the Republic… to democracy.
Anakin Skywalker: If you’re not with me, you’re my enemy.
Obi-Wan: Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes. I will do what I must.
Anakin Skywalker: You will try.
Thompson
June 1, 2005 at 2:12 pm
13Occasionally, life does ascend to the level of art. From an AFP article, G. Gordon Liddy–the guy who organized the Watergate break-in–just accused Felt of violating the ethical standards of the office he held during the scandal. In other news, the Bureau of Pot Affairs insists the kettle is less than white.
madbard
June 1, 2005 at 2:51 pm
14Everyone knows G. Gordon Liddy HAS A TALK SHOW! Therefore he is a HERO. Who is this mark felt? Some 90 year old without a talk show? Even his name sounds like a font family.
Actually there were Deep Throats in the Bush administration. But they’ve disappeared into the pits of Gitmo…. or got tarred with the MSM brush.
Harold
June 1, 2005 at 3:18 pm
15Now, now. There is one heroic Deep Throat in the Dubya Administration: the Noble and True Anonymous Source that bravely outed Valerie Plame to the Woodward & Bernstein of our day, Robert Novak. Let that be a lesson to villains like Joe Wilson who will DARE to contradict the assertions of His Excellency with mere FACTS! No, vile wretches, even your families are not safe from the fruits of your treason!
Pete IVDL
June 1, 2005 at 7:38 pm
16So does this mean there is now “big” journalism to go with “big” government? And does that make blogologists David to the MSM’s Goliath? (I know it’s not THAT black & white)
So if the SERs are senior editors now (I think you’re right on that Mary), can we do anything about the newer SERs bringing their “hit of the minute” goldfish-style attention span ethics to the business of journalism? Or must we rely on the few to edit the many? (I don’t like where this line of thought is heading… headlines like “The Frog Ringtone”? Or MSM that reads like The Onion, only for real?)
Elliott!!! I haven’t seen the movie yet… don’t tell me Anakin W Skywalker (D., Tattooine) turns into a mean, horrible Sith Lord (R., Empire)… (And what a great (and scary) memory you have!)
hedera
June 4, 2005 at 12:31 am
17Elliott, I saw the movie too (reluctantly), and as I watched that sequence, I had the same weird feeling. That is exactly how the W people talk. It’s as if the words don’t really mean what they say.
In Orwell’s Newspeak, at least they made up new words; this is more like Lewis Carroll:
`When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’