Watergate is an era that proceeded me, Watergate was finished long before I dipped my baby toe into politics, yet the repercussions of that era continues to affect politics in a profound way, even to this day.
Yesterday, as I'm sure everyone now realizes, the infamous Deep Throat was revealed to be the former number 2 man in the FBI, W. Mark Felt. Felt, now a 91-year-old stroke victim, revealed this to a freelance Vanity Fair reporter. Felt was the man who met many times with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in parking garages to confirm many of the facts Woodward and partner Carl Bernstein uncovered about the Nixon administration's involvement and subsequent cover up of the Watergate burglary. (More Inside)
For me, the revelation that Deep Throat was indeed Mark Felt has stirred a number of reactions in me. The first and most visceral is a profound sense of gratitude to a man that put everything on the line to bring down a corrupt administration. Nixon, as revealed through his tapes and his actions was a paranoid and unstable man, while I can't honestly argue from a policy standpoint that he was a terrible president, I can argue he was a terrible person. He, or at a minimum, his close advisors, broke the law in order to get a leg up on the election of 1972. Regardless of whether or not Nixon personally advocated the illegal use of campaign funds to finance criminal acts on his behalf is irrelevant. He orchestrated the cover up of those actions and gave tacit approval to them. Without Deep Throat's confirming of Woodward and Bernstein's reporting, we may not have seen the story take hold. Without those stories, the administration's cover up, with the help of FBI director Gray may have worked. Instead, those criminal bastards resigned in shame, and some went to prison for their actions. In this way, Deep Throat has inarguably changed the world, and our government, for the better.
The second and more difficult reaction for me is whether Deep Throat can truly be considered a hero. There is little doubt that he broke the law in order to expose the Nixon administration. Throughout my life, I have always argued for the rule of law and the process of law. I don't believe that evidence without a search warrant is permissible, I have scoffed at the idea of breaking or bending laws in order to stop terrorism. Often I have argued that without those basic rights for criminals, we stoop to the level of a criminal.
This is why Mark Felt's admission is so difficult for me. In addition to the Watergate investigation, Felt also made news for using unlawful tactics against the Weather Underground. While convicted of this crime, Reagan later pardoned him. As a progressive, I am torn. I think the knocking down of Nixon is the most important political event of the 20th century. For that time, America stood up and said that this government belongs to the people, not to dictators. However, recent evidence now shows we may not have known this without the unlawful actions of a senior FBI man.
Articles this morning also portray Felt as a conflicted man himself. He did not seem to be proud of his actions, but viewed them as the only way to serve justice against the greater evil being committed. Yes, leaking information is a crime, but trying to rig an election is far worse on the surface. Yet it is this moral relativism that I have railed against for so long.
I wish it wasn't Felt, I wish it was a Nixon insider, not the man investigating. However, I do believe Felt blew the whistle on the most atrocious abuse of power in recent history.
I am anxious to see how you all have reacted to this.