PrintDecember 26, 2008
The Death of Deep Throat and the Crisis of Journalism
The disclosure of Deep Throat's identity as the then-operational head of the FBI, Mark Felt has caused serious reappraisals of the real story of Watergate. George Friedman, President of Stratfor has written an essay that helps to cuts through the thick smokescreen being emitted by the Post and the rest of the drive-by media to enshroud Watergate in a fog of confusion.
The Post repeatedly portrayed Felt as a bit player in the Watergate saga. A prime example of this clever prose employeed to confuse and dissemble, is a story David Von Drehle of the Post wrote on June 1, 2005
"By tethering the myth to a real and imperfect human being, Americans may be able to get a clearer picture of Watergate in the future, they said (Woodward and Bernstein) "Felt's role in all this can be overstated," said Bernstein, who went on after Watergate to a career of books, magazine articles and television investigations. "When we wrote the book, we didn't think his role would achieve such mythical dimensions. You see there that Felt/Deep Throat largely confirmed information we had already gotten from other sources."
This masterful spinning is almost admirable were it not in service of lie. In contrast, Stratfor's Friedman's summation probably hewes more closely to the actual truth:
"Whatever crimes Nixon committed, the FBI had spied on the president and leaked what it knew to The Washington Post in order to destroy him. The editor of The Washington Post knew that, as did Woodward and Bernstein. We do not begrudge them their prizes and accolades, but it would have been useful to know who handed them the story. In many ways, that story is as interesting as the one about all the president兵s men."
Friedman hits this one out of the park.
