Post by Mink on Dec 20, 2008 2:29:59 GMT -5
If he isn't honored, he should be and soon. Mark Felt, aka Deep Throat, died this week at the ripe age of 95. It makes me proud that he was from Santa Rosa. Rest in peace!
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/19/AR2008121903822.html?sid=ST2008121901327&s_pos=list
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/19/AR2008121903822.html?sid=ST2008121901327&s_pos=list
He was Deep Throat, ya know? Without a single byline he inspired thousands and thousands of campus misfits to get journalism degrees, each one of them in pursuit of bad haircuts, smoking habits and the next Deep Throat, the next huge story. Any "-gate" that followed or may yet follow feels incomplete without its own Deep Throat.
Much was being said yesterday about Felt's patriotic duty to the Constitution, to ideals. Nothing in Felt's story indicates a profound love for the Fourth Estate. He was FBI. He didn't make a career of being a loose set of lips. This is a story about doing the right thing when the moment called for it. Thirty-six years after the Watergate break-in, Woodward and his former colleague Carl Bernstein visited Felt at the house where he lived with his daughter and grandson. They talked for a couple of hours. They had lived so long with the strangest sort of fame. Although he was in on the secret all those years, Bernstein had never met Deep Throat.
The host asked Bernstein whether he considered Felt "an American hero," as Felt's family claimed when their father and grandfather "came out" in May 2005. "Look," Bernstein said, "Watergate was a constitutional crisis in a criminal presidency. And he had the guts to say: 'Wait. The Constitution is more important in this situation than a president of the United States who breaks the law.' It's an important lesson, I think, for the country and for people in our business, as well."
Felt had breakfast Thursday at his home in Santa Rosa, Calif., he took a nap and disappeared into the evermore. As we in the newspaper biz say, he took the buyout. Good for him, and thank you.
Much was being said yesterday about Felt's patriotic duty to the Constitution, to ideals. Nothing in Felt's story indicates a profound love for the Fourth Estate. He was FBI. He didn't make a career of being a loose set of lips. This is a story about doing the right thing when the moment called for it. Thirty-six years after the Watergate break-in, Woodward and his former colleague Carl Bernstein visited Felt at the house where he lived with his daughter and grandson. They talked for a couple of hours. They had lived so long with the strangest sort of fame. Although he was in on the secret all those years, Bernstein had never met Deep Throat.
The host asked Bernstein whether he considered Felt "an American hero," as Felt's family claimed when their father and grandfather "came out" in May 2005. "Look," Bernstein said, "Watergate was a constitutional crisis in a criminal presidency. And he had the guts to say: 'Wait. The Constitution is more important in this situation than a president of the United States who breaks the law.' It's an important lesson, I think, for the country and for people in our business, as well."
Felt had breakfast Thursday at his home in Santa Rosa, Calif., he took a nap and disappeared into the evermore. As we in the newspaper biz say, he took the buyout. Good for him, and thank you.
