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6-06-2005
The elderly gentleman stood in the doorway of his Santa Rosa, California home with his family behind him and waved to the
crowd of reporters gathered on their front lawn as the flash bulbs of cameras captured the moment in snapshot images for historical
record.
The 91-year-old man appeared to be an average retired American with snow-white hair, ruddy complexion, and
energetic smile. There was no indication other than the surprising announcement the he was in fact the notorious ‘Deep
Throat’ of Watergate fame.
What makes this new information even more fantastical than just the revelation of
the vaunted ‘mystery man’ who brought down the Nixon Administration, is that the revelation has actually generated
more intrigue than existed before.
The seemingly genteel man in the doorway named W. Mark Felt had once been someone
who was steeped in the dark recesses of cloak and dagger governmental involvement with more power than just about anyone on
the planet during his days as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Deputy Director.
The power he wielded in
that position came from the secretive, undercover investigative information that was collected through FBI agents who worked
to accumulate data on the personal lives of suspects who were chosen for various reasons including governmental profiles and
political opposition.
Having access to that collected information made him either a trusted ally or a dire enemy to
anyone in a governmental position. He was one of the only people to have access to every piece of information in the entirety
of FBI rank and file.
Mixing that power with the ruthless desire of possible vengeance created a toxic combination
that seems to have turned Mr. Felt into the Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde character of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s Deep
Throat.
The ensuing saga and culminating intrigue spanned decades in which literally hundreds of speculators tried
to unravel the mystery of who exactly the shadowy figure depicted in ‘All The President’s Men’ was. Several
top Nixon administration officials had been fingered as Deep Throat including Pat Buchanan, George H. W. Bush, Alexander Haig,
Diane Sawyer and even Mr. Felt.
The revelation that Mr. Felt was actually the culprit, shed a massive amount of light
on the Watergate drama, while at the same time turned a complex unsolved mystery into a full blown national and political
debate.
Many on the Left, including the media, were ecstatic over the discovery and were ready with an onslaught of
praise and admiration, but were let down that Deep Throat wasn’t one of the more prominent players in the episode.
Most
on the Right finally realized their opportunity to vent frustration over the resulting collective vilification of Conservatives
politically, and in the media spotlight, created by the saga and the mystery that helped to sustain it.
It was the
candid affront given by Conservative leaders, especially those close to the Watergate scandal that caught media elitists off
guard. The mainstream press hadn’t anticipated the Right would be vocal over the revelation, probably because they had
gotten so used to Conservatives cowering in the heat of media attacks.
Especially concerning the Watergate scandal.
Media elitists assumed they would forever be able to paint President Nixon as a crook and by transference continue to use
that template for any Conservative they wished to destroy. Watergate, after all, was liberal media elitists’ grandest
coup d’etat.
Not this time.
Pat Buchanan called Felt out and referred to what the final chapter of this
sordid tale really concerned. “We’ve always conceded that the ’old man’ handled it badly. But he was
not brought down by a band of angels. He was brought down by a band of Nixon-haters... and whom we now learn used a snake
in the FBI. This is basically a battle over history and a battle over truth,” he said.
What truth would that
be? According to media elitists, President Nixon was a crook who abused power and therefore exemplifies a dishonest presidency.
Yet those same media types continue to play history revisionists concerning the many documented abuses of power during the
Clinton administration.
It’s also documented historical fact that FDR, the great presidential bastion of liberalism,
regularly used the IRS and the supposedly confidential information they had about American citizens to attack his enemies.
Conservatives and Conservative groups were also harangued by the administrations of JFK and Bill Clinton.
President
Lyndon Johnson also used the FBI to ‘investigate’ the Senate staff of Barry Goldwater in 1964 and mountains of
information was amassed on JFK and abuses by him and his administration resources. This all shows that ’corruption’
in the American government wasn’t exclusive and didn’t preserve the ’integrity’ of government simply
because two reporters used a FBI informant to destroy a president.
The bigger issue here is that the Watergate scandal
had more to do with media elitists building their power over the dissemination of information through the press and attacking
Conservatives than ending corruption in the White House.
On the one hand, there were two journalists who were after
what most journalists are after... recognition, praise, and financial security. Taking advantage of a story that they assumed
would be explosively powerful and their golden goose was logical.
Their media bosses knew how big the story would
be, but more importantly for them, was the opportunity to take down an enormously popular Conservative president who had won
re-election in 1972 with over 41 million votes and 520 electoral votes. They were absolutely petrified that America had turned
against liberalism and was embracing Conservatism.
On the other hand, you had a disgruntled employee who believed he
would become the head of the FBI after Hoover died. When that didn’t materialize, he decided it was time for him to
do his best to discredit the man he blamed for being shunned of his coveted position... President Nixon.
Now that the
secret identity of Deep Throat has been exposed, so has his life story and what he did as the Deputy Director of the FBI.
Felt, in November 1980, was convicted of authorizing break-ins into the homes of members of the Weathermen in the 1970s without
warrants. Felt testified during the trial that he was following standard procedures for government investigations.
That
revelation illuminates the very hypocrisy of his reasoning and motivation for Deep Throat. He attacked President Nixon as
being the catalyst for taking part in activities that Felt himself either took part in regularly or authorized personally.
In
the late Nineties, when the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal was in full bore, Linda Tripp was practically, and by some reports totally,
destroyed by the Clinton administration and the liberal media for her role as ‘informant’ in that debacle. Clinton
was even indicted for perjury, yet, unlike Nixon, he refused to step down from his role as president.
The fact that
the liberal media still adores Clinton and admonishes Tripp is proof of the hypocrisy exuded by liberal media elitists concerning
political ideology and their double standard.
This saga may be in the final chapter, but it will probably be the longest
chapter of all as history revisionists try desperately to maintain their position that Nixon was ’crooked’ and
that Deep Throat was ‘honorable’.
Historical facts don’t lie, but the purveyors of those facts will.
Lee P Butler
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