May 31, 2005

• I mean, Woodward will neither confirm nor deny. Must calm down before posting.
• Robert Redford was unavailable for comment.
• Cool link, Koko! I got all obsessed with this earlier this year when I read "All the President's Men." I never pegged Felt -- I thought it was Deputy White House Council Fielding, myself.
• and this is the .pdf Vanity Fair article which I haven't read yet ---- *sigh* I need it read to me.
• Assuming this is true, he deserves a medal. But somehow I don't think he'll get one.
• Heh...unlikely from the mob in office atm.
• it has the ring of truth to it. but of course there are some problems: first, he's denied it in the past. second, he's in and out of dementia. third, his children pressured him into admitting it. and, the main reason why we won't know if this is for real -- "woodstein" (as they are known here) both say they promised deep throat they wouldn't confirm his identity until after he dies, and they intend on keeping that promise. so even if it is felt, we'll have to wait for him to die to find out for sure.
• I was always an Alexander Haig man myself, but this is pretty big.
• we'll have to wait for him to die to find out for sure. I'm on it. *snick-SNICK*
• I hear what you're saying sidedish but the thing that's just occurred to me --- if this was a senile fellow making up a story, wouldn't you expect that to be something that Burnwood to actually deny?
• errr: to = would........making the sentence sound pretty dumb. *sigh* I need an editor AND a reader. maybe I really need a wife .. ladies, I keed I keed
• they neither confirm nor deny anything. period. that's been their strict rule. i vaguely remember once one of them coming close to denying someone... lemmee see if i can find something on that.
• oh and romenesko's blog is good to keep an eye on for stuff like this, in case you're not familiar with it
• Does this mean I'll have to stop claiming it was me at parties?
• "oh and romenesko's blog is good to keep an eye on for stuff like this, in case you're not familiar with it" Heh...I imagine EVERYWHERE will be purusing this --- we'll have 24/7 Woodstein cams.
• Does this mean I'll have to stop claiming it was me at parties? You could always claim you're the other Deep Throat. ;-)
• see also this slate column
• from April 5, 1975, U.S. Affairs: * Haldeman thought former FBI associate director W. Mark Felt was "Deep Throat," the undisclosed source of Watergate information to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. (Felt's comment, reported by the Post March 30: "This is not the first time Mr. Haldeman has been wrong.")
• yeah...Felt denied it last in '99 I believe.
• Man, I really admire the journalistic integrity of those two WaPo reporters. Imagine if reporters like Robert Novak (*spit*) had even a tiny bit of that integrity?
• and they have denied it was haig. this is from larry king live in June 1997... KING: Was Deep Throat a key to this -- no Deep Throat, no story? WOODWARD: Well, that's a real if history question. I mean, he was part of it. He's a source that lots of people have focused on, but we had -- I think at one point, we went through and listed that we had 50 to 60 sources. KING: You're always asked to name them. Why aren't you asked to name them? BERNSTEIN: He met with Bob. KING: You never met with him? BERNSTEIN: I'm not going to get into that question or not. WOODWARD: See, isn't that good? We're still capable of protecting our secrets. KING: NBC in a funny report tonight said it's not Haig, because Woodward says it's not Haig. But you're not going to say it's Haig. If I say it's Haig, you're not going to say yes. BERNSTEIN: That's the one thing we've said. WOODWARD: Yes. BERNSTEIN: It's not Haig. I don't know why you said it in the first place. But you did... KING: If I named the person, if I said Clarence Mitchell, you would say, no, it isn't Clarence Mitchell, right? WOODWARD: You are not Deep Throat. We can say that you and Al Haig are not Deep Throat. KING: If I guessed right, you would what? WOODWARD: No, no, no, we would not lie about it. But in the case of Haig, people were saying that he was Deep Throat and that it was some sort of conspiracy. And he was not in the position at the time we were writing these stories and getting information to have it. So it made absolutely no sense. BERNSTEIN: It's also important to remember that most of our primary information came from other sources. Deep Throat's primary role was in confirming what we obtained elsewhere. KING: As portrayed in the movie? WOODWARD: In providing the outline... KING: You tell me what you got, and I'll tell you if you're on the right trail. WOODWARD: ...in providing an outline and a sense of the weightiness of what was going on that this was a big deal. KING: Senator, do you have your guesses? GEORGE MCGOVERN, 1972 DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I really don't. I have speculated on various people, but I don't have any inside information on this. We'll have to wait until these two great writers tell us what happened. BERNSTEIN: When the individual died -- when he dies -- KING: It is a he? BERNSTEIN: Yes. It's exactly as we've described it in the book, someone who occupied a sensitive position in the executive branch.
• my gut feeling, FWIW, as a journalist who's been following this since back when i was a reporter in high school: i think it really is mark felt, and i think woodward will admit this within the next week. just a gut feeling. interesting side note: woodward used to refer to deep throat as "My Friend at the FBI," many people have taken that to be mark felt's initials.
• also note... bernstein won't confirm or deny, but if you read between the lines here, remember that deep throat was WOODWARD'S source. and so far woodward has no comment.
• Personally, I hope we never find out. I enjoy having the mystery rather than a simple, ultimately forgettable fact. (Besides -- there was no Deep Throat. They made him up. So there.)
• that IS one thing they HAVE denied, that deep throat was a composite or a fictional individual.
• Yeah yeah. I was just being a silly, flamebaiting monkey.
• Wasn't it Deep Throat that also gave f8xmulder all those tips on the black oil aliens in that parking garage in Vancouver BC? /besotted with media
• Deep Throat finally revealed, huh? End of an era.
• capt. renault is a flaming monkey? who knew?
• Pshaw.
• eeeeeeeeek! flaming monkey! now i've scared myself!
• Now we just need a new deep throat to bring this sad excuse for an administration down.
• Washington Post to confirm in fifteen minutes or so.
• "Now we just need a new deep throat to bring this sad excuse for an administration down." Nixon was sloppy. Bushco 'deep throat' potentials are routinely aborted in the government before they can do any damage. And the frightened press wouldn't know what to do with an opportunity like that today anyway.
• whaddya mean, pallas? it's still just a "no comment" from washpost.
• Keep watching the site.
• oooo! pallas is our own deep throat!!!
• Hee hee-- in a journalism way, you mean? (checks to see clothes still on)
• Looks like the grandson just 'confirmed' the story. Something just isn't right about all this.
• the grandson can confirm all he wants. it ain't deep throat until *woodward* says it's deep throat. and the only suspicious thing here is pallas' disheveled clothing. heee heeee!!
• pallas, hope you're right, romenesko has now postponed his afternoon swim on your tip...
• and i have to leave soon for the Nats game... should i stick around, pallas? how sure are you that history will be made within the next, say, two hours? i'd be willing to miss the first few innings to hear woodward confirm this
• Well, they seem to be taking their time about it but my source is reliable.
• good enough. i'll wait awhile. thanks!
• more on Felt, from san fran chronicle 1992: Years after his 1973 retirement, Felt was indicted and convicted of authorizing warrantless searches of private homes in pursuit of radical bombers of the Weather Underground. At his trial, an utterly extraordinary witness volunteered to testify on his behalf: Richard Nixon. "I think [my father] was pleased intitially, but I don't think [he] ultimately felt Nixon was a help," said Felt's son, who noted that Nixon was very unpopular with the jurors. President Ronald Reagan eventually pardoned Felt, and the case against him was later dismissed.
• Check the front page of the Washington Post. It's confirmed.
• Current Washington Post headline: "Woodward Confirms Felt as 'Deep Throat.'"
• damn, oklo, that was quick
• and now SideDish gets to see the Nats on time! and Monkeyfilter has acquired its own anonymous and trustworthy source, accessible only through Pallas Athena. Beautiful!
• WOO!!! PALLAS WINS!! this is incredible. although i always thought it would come about in a very different manner, not an article in vanity fair. but, hey, good for them.
• FINALLY
• what a historic day. and i pity his family, because for the next weeks all we're going to hear about his his conviction/pardon. they have no idea that's coming, i'm sure.
• I have a feeling they have an idea. I smell manuscripts being prepared and new clothes being purchased for lots of tv interviews.
• Yeah, bit surreal isn't it? I expected it to be after his death too. Though, y'know, good on him for still being alive after all these years. On preview: presumably his family's lawyers will have warned them about that. Hope for the best, anyway.
• and thanks tons for the headsup, pallas! i'm sure romenesko would have kicked himself had he gone for that swim. heh.
• I was hoping it was Pat Buchanan. Just for the entertainment factor.
• All those guys in Washington who've gone around for years telling their friends and families that they were deep throat must be so friggin' embarrassed right now.
• Ok, another one down. Next: Who was the second shooter on the grassy knoll? Anyone?
• Maggie Simpson?
• Glad the timing turned out so fortuitous, SideDish! My best to romenesko. Second shooter... hmm.... anyone asked quidnunc? He's suspiciously talented with a lightsaber.
• In the article, O'Connor reports that Felt's children, Joan and Mark Jr., urged him to go public after he revealed his secret to them in 2002. Felt argued with them, O'Connor writes, saying he didn't want the story out there. But Joan is quoted as saying that "Bob Woodward's gonna get all the glory for this, but we could make at least enough money to pay some bills, like the debt I've run up for the kids' education. Let's do it for the family." O'Connor adds that Felt finally agreed, saying "that's a good reason" even though Mark Jr. recalls him as saying "he wasn't particularly interested" in disclosing the secret.
• Wow -- I'm excited. And (if you look above) wrong :)
• Interesting, Melinika. I suspected the motive was money. Nothing wrong with that but it just seems an old man was pressured into doing something he didn't want to do. I can just imagine how persistent Joan and Mark Jr. were over the past three years.
• It seems that Felt had also come to terms with what he'd done, and perhaps wanted a chance to explain/justify his actions. As for the money issue, is it more or less ethical for Woodward to be the main benefactor?
• Should anyone have profited from a break in?
• I agree, oklo. I hope his family didn't badger Felt into it. The fact that Woodward wasn't in on the _VF_ article makes me wonder if he was pressured into it, though.
• hikikomori, this goes way beyond a break in.
• Break in ---> Cover up ---> FBI leak ---> Washington Post ---> Nixon resigns ---> Various entities profit? Am I leaving something crucial out?
• from the msnbc article:His family members thought otherwise, and persuaded him to talk about his role in the Watergate scandal, saying he deserves to receive accolades before his death. His daughter, Joan, argued that he could “make enough money to pay some bills, like the debt I’ve run up for the children’s education.” It sounds like his health is not good enough for him to get the most out of the news/talk show circuit. If it had to happen before he died, I wish it had also happened before he reached the stage of "poor mental health." Although, it could be interesting if they release notes/tapes from back then (Felt's, Woodward's, Bernstein's) if they exist.
• Deep Throat wasn't one guy, he was several sources smooshed into one.
• Sure you're not thinking about the film, Chy?
• Smooshy Sources. Say that ten times fast.
• I tried. My lips fell off. It wasn't pretty.
• LOL Sorry, Pallas. I'm gonna ask Angelina Jolie if she can spare a pair.
• Don't use those lips! You don't know where they've been!
• OMG you're right! She used those things on BillyBob Thornton.
• "Sure you're not thinking about the film, Chy?" I thought Woodward and Bernstein had actually stated that Deep Throat was an amalgam of several people. Never seen the movie.
• I think there's something to what you're saying Chy, "Mr. Woodward and Mr. Bernstein said in a statement posted this afternoon on The Post's Web site: “W. Mark Felt was 'Deep Throat' and helped us immeasurably in our Watergate coverage. However, as the record shows, many other sources and officials assisted us and other reporters for the hundreds of stories that were written in The Washington Post about Watergate.”
• Ah, there you go. I'm little interested in this ancient history, to be honest. I just wish there were investigative reporters of this calibre today exposing the shit going on in government now.
• Amen.
• Reb'n!
• Somewhere in one of the links posted here, Woodward says that Deep Throat was also used to corraborate things they heard from other sources. I believe that's what he's referring to when he speaks of "other sources and officials".
• Whatever dudes. I can tell you who "did" Dallas.
• Wow. I've been convinced it was this guy since February.
• Who cares?
• Wow! I have been waiting a long time for this to come out!! Things are coming full circle. This is definately a day for the journalistic history books!!
• Well, actually, I do. And considering the amount of discussion both here and on the green, quite a number of other folks do as well.
• (green, blue, I'm tired)
• Moneyjane: it was debbie
• this excerpt from hank steuver's essay says it all: Aggrieved readers beseech reporters and editors to swoop in and shine the beacon of unstoppable truth, always aided by the well-placed, anonymous source. Expose the bastards. Bring down the president every four or five years, every month, every week, every day. To be a reporter now is to get all kinds of e-mail: How come you guys aren't looking into [blank]?! When are you going to blow the lid off the obvious [blank] of the [blank]?! Newspapers launch vast ships of investigative reportage and still all anybody is really looking for -- in any of the five, six, seven installments of the series -- is the paragraph that will approximate the Deep Throat thrill. Gone is a sort of tidy, narrow definition of evil, of corruption. The gotcha is now a tawdry exercise in minutiae, not a blow against the Establishment, against the Man. "What did he know and when did he know it" puts us to sleep. "Follow the money" is an exercise in Excel spreadsheets, occasionally praised by prize committees, but rarely read. It turns out being in the dark about Deep Throat was more enthralling than holding it out to the light. Had he lived in this era, Deep Throat might not have lasted long. He'd be blogged to bits. He'd be Drudged, smudged, Romenesko'd. People would disprove him with their own Deep Throats. His identity would be discovered within a news cycle or two, spun around, and he'd be left holding a book contract. Perhaps Deep Throat's lovely (and daring) parting gift to Washington, especially to reporters, is simple: He actually exists. He is not fabrication or composite. He is one man, a fact not easily proved had he taken his secret to the grave. That in itself, in an era where trust has been shredded beyond recognition, is something to behold.
• You know? It's kind of sad. The identity of Deep Throat was always one of those things that I assumed would never be known. It this world, there's precious little real mystery left, and we need a little mystery once in a while. Plus, it was a testimony to the vaunted ability to keep a secret. All of us think we can keep a secret, and nearly none of us actually can. Woodward and Bernstein were secret-keeping supermen, the Batman and Robin of keeping it in the vault. They kept that mutha for 30 YEARS, through presidential-level inquiry, wild and continuing public speculation, and the not inestimable Ben Bradlee curmudgeonation. These guys should go in the Guiness, just like that Japanese guy who ate a coupla hundred hotdogs in an hour. Secret-keeping on this level is not only heinously difficult, it's downright alien. But anyway, on an intellectual level, I'm glad that Deep Throat was a real, laudable person, and that Woodstein didn't gin him up out of whole cloth like some proto-Jayson Blair. But, I think, history is a little emptier today because of it.
• mmmm, hot dogs
• You can't get a decent hotdog in St. Louis. It pisses me off to no end. You can, however, get a "bratzel," which is a bratwurst dipped on pretzel batter, deep-fried and covered with salt and mustard.
• Which, I might add, they serve on a stick.
• Sweet damn, that sounds tasty.
• oh man fes that sounds delish.
• They are super good. You get them at Gus' Pretzels.
• W. Mark Felt Tribute Site here: http://www.wmarkfeltisdeepthroat.com/
• Sorry, guys, I just can't get excited. I think that with the revelation, we've lost something. The mystery, debate and secrecy was all a lot more interesting than the simple fact. Plus all of this talk about the so-called 'Nats', my beloved Expos, mon pauvre Expos, well, it's all left me feeling a little glum. Pass me a bratzel...
• details on gray's conviction from newsweek april 1981: The controversial case, begun in 1978, grew out of a lengthy investigation into illegal wiretaps and warrantless searches that FBI agents used against radical groups during the Vietnam War. Felt, former No. 2 man in the bureau, and Miller, former chief of the domestic intelligence division, admitted that they ordered agents secretly to enter the hornes of friends and relatives of Weather Underground members in 1972 and 1973, looking for clues to the whereabouts of the radicals. Agents dressed up as telephone repairmen, picked locks or bribed landlords to gain entrance, then rummaged through desks, drawers and closets photographing papers with document-copying cameras. Felt and Miller argued that such "black bag jobs" were justified on national-security grounds--because the Weathermen may have had ties to foreign governments--and they claimed they had authorization from L. Patrick Gray lII, then FBI acting director.* Gray denied approving the break-ins, and prosecutors introduced evidence that Felt and Miller had deliberately concealed records of the break-ins. In the end, the jury ruled that Felt and Miller had acted on their own and with criminal intent. Felt was fined $5,000 and Miller $3,500.
• Plus all of this talk about the so-called 'Nats', my beloved Expos, mon pauvre Expos, well, it's all left me feeling a little glum. Sorry, Capt. Renault. I wanted a team here, but I didn't want to have someone else's team. My condolences.
• Thanks, NTI. Much appreciated.
• yes it bothers me to no end the logo that features THE WASHINGTON NATIONALS: EST. 1905. gimme a break.
• best. reaction. yet. BWHAAAAAAA!!! WASHINGTON -- President Bush said on Wednesday the disclosure that the former No. 2 official at the FBI was Watergate's "Deep Throat" source caught him by surprise and he's anxious to learn more details about his relationship with the news media. "It's hard for me to judge" whether former deputy FBI Director Mark Felt provided a valuable public service or acted improperly, Bush told reporters. "I'm learning more about the situation," he said.
• Added the President, "I'm also not sure whether eating babies is always wrong. I mean, if you're starving to death, and the baby's a real dick or something...I dunno, gotta think on it."
• Don't doubt the power of Nixon's Beatification. When Ahrnie got up at the GOP convention and proclaimed how he became a Republican based on the fine leadership example of Nixon, and was -- gasp -- applauded, that was our first sign that the revisionism has firmly taken root. So yeah, it's hard for Chimpy to judge. He has to balance the public perception of massive executive corruption with his own practice of it.
• From the W. Mark Felt Tribute Site: Post your comments in praise of him here. ... Comments (0)
• Capt., are you in CA? How did you hear that? I ask because I didn't hear anything like that at all, and if I'd have, I would have tried a damn sight harder to convince certain people around me to not vote for the dill-hole (not me - I didn't vote for anyone. I simply voted "no" on the recall).
• A transcript of Schwarzenegger's comments at the GOP convention includes the following:

  I finally arrived here in 1968. What a special day it was. I remember I arrived here with empty pockets but full of dreams, full of determination, full of desire. The presidential campaign was in full swing. I remember watching the Nixon-Humphrey presidential race on TV. A friend of mine who spoke German and English translated for me. I heard Humphrey saying things that sounded like socialism, which I had just left. But then I heard Nixon speak. Then I heard Nixon speak. He was talking about free enterprise, getting the government off your back, lowering the taxes and strengthening the military. Listening to Nixon speak sounded more like a breath of fresh air. I said to my friend, I said, "What party is he?" My friend said, "He's a Republican." I said, "Then I am a Republican." And I have been a Republican ever since. And trust me -- and trust me -- in my wife's family, that's no small achievement.

  Maybe something was lost in translation. (I can't remember either way about the applause.)
• minda -- Not in CA, but CAnada. I saw the whole mess on PBS out of Buffalo. Mind you, I was fairly drunk on Laphroaig at the time, to perhaps my recollections aren't entirely accurate. There was a lot of yelling at the tv that night (nevermind that I live alone). But, honest to goodness, I remember Ahrnie being applauded for his praise of Nixon. That bit sorta stuck out. First, because he was praising NIXON, and second, because the convention was, at that point, entirely a hagiography of Reagan.
• "SO perhaps". (I might be drunk on Laphroaig right now...)
• Ah, thanks for that! To have said it way back when, that's one thing. But to be saying it now, and be applauded for it, is something else entirely. There's something wrong with the U.S. right now, and I'm getting anxious for it to be fixed.
• Louis Patrick Gray III, FBI chief during the Watergate scandal, passed away...
• Heh. wonder how many of us yell at TVs? I used to in days before I quit watching altogether.
• I yell at the TV. My poor wife.
• "Deep Throat" Mark Felt dies aged 95