"Deep Throat"(Mark Felt)--Hero or Zero?

[fedfem]

So how does everyone feel about the outing of Deep Throat? I am amused by the different views out there in punditville which as usual seem to be based along party lines.

I for one think he did a great service. We definitely need another in our current situation.

[Lou Minotti]

We have many in our current situation. John O Neil, Sibel Edmonds, Robert Wright, Mike Springman...to name a few.

[Trotsky]

He did the right thing but went the wrong way about it.

[Nono]

And the "right" way would have been...?

[lsbskins1]

Well, it's no surprise all the Nixon appologists are out. Rush rehashes the old claim that Nixon's only problem was that he got caught doing what everyone else did. Buchannan claims Felt is responsible for the US losing the Vietnam war. Ben Stein says, " The assumption of power in Cambodia by the bloodiest government of all time, the Khmer Rouge, who killed a third of their own people, often by making children beat their own parents to death. No one doubts RN would never have let this happen." He claims that Felt and those who sought to bring Nixon down bear the kharmic weight of these deaths. Wow! These people, of course, know better. Vietnam was a lost cause from the beginning. In case you never bothered to find out, that was what the Pentagon Papers, whose publication was really the crux of the whole Watergate mess, said. That is why Ellsburg felt that the American people needed to know what those in power knew. The plumbers came into being as a direct result of their publication. Nobody wanted it known that every fact finding mission, every political reality said that we would not be successful in Vietnam, because noboby wanted to appear to be either soft on communism or responsible for the next lost "domino". The Republicans beat Truman to death with China. Nixon would have never "won" that war. It is bullshit. And what do those who know better hope to accomplish by telling this lie? They hope to convince those too lazy to read their history books that this was all an evil, perpetrated on the American public by their favorite bug-a-boo, the "liberal media". If they can convince them of this, it will be impossible for the media to fulfill it's watchdog responsibility. They will be neutered by the belief that they are only interested in their own power, even at the expense of millions of innocent lives. And it is all a big fat lie. The neo-cons did learn one very valuable lesson from the facists, repeat the big lie over and over and people will believe it. It makes me sick.

Felt is neither hero, nor zero... He did what needed to be done. He kept the watchdog on the right track, he was never the source for any story, he did not leak anything that Woodward and Berstein did not already have prior sources on, and he knew that the administration was impeeding the investigation. He is a flawed man. He authorized illegal break-ins himself, and oh, is that setting up a quandry for the conservatives, because he was pardoned by none other than the "great one", Ronald Regan. They can not villify him too much, otherwise someone might say Regan was a bad judge of character. Its fun to watch them do that dance...

[Technosoul]

I agree that he did the right thing - the only bad result of that is that Washington moved to gain more control over the newsmen so that it would not happen again ... bye bye Dan Rather.

I think he should be listed in our history books (future) as someone important and respected.

The power of the press is not what it used to be, at least not from my viewpoint. But those who can manipulate the press it would seem fine and dandy.

At least the young folks will no longer think Deep Throat was a prono star.

Wonder if Felt as a book forthcoming?

Technosoul.

[Digital Man]

He's neither