Where's Deep Throat When We Really Need Him?
June 2, 2005
_____
Bummer! Now there are only two secrets left: Where's
Jimmy Hoffa? And what
was the runaway bride really up to in Las Vegas?
The unveiling of Deep Throat was, for most of us, a
big letdown. First,
because it ruined the best and longest-running
cocktail party chatter in
American politics. But also because, after all this
speculation for so many
years, he turned out to be 91-year old Mark Felt of
Santa Rosa, California -
somebody few of us had ever heard of, let alone
suspected. How much more fun
had he, in fact, turned out to be Henry Kissinger or
Alexander Haig.
Felt's coming-out party - orchestrated by his family,
with the help of
Vanity Fair magazine - was a godsend to talk radio and
cable television and
a welcome distraction from the sordid Michael Jackson
trial. But, as usual,
I think the media missed the big story.
Most Deep Throat coverage focused on one of two
angles, starting with: Do
you believe he's the one? That question quickly ran
out of steam when the
Washington Post's Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Ben
Bradlee, official
keepers of the secret, admitted that Felt was their
man - and that they'd
been scooped by Vanity Fair.
Then followed the second, equally fatuous, question:
Is Mark Felt a hero or
traitor? No surprise that Pat Buchanan and G. Gordon
Liddy, the only two
Nixon lovers left on the planet, were alone in
branding Felt a snake. Nixon
was a crook and a liar and a man who used the powers
of the presidency to
undermine the Constitution. Anybody who was brave
enough to stand up and
expose Nixon's wrongdoings, no matter his personal
motives, is an authentic
American hero. Too bad there aren't more like him
today.
And that's the big story of Mark Felt's confession.
Not: Why did he dare
tell the truth about Nixon, way back then? But: Why
doesn't somebody tell
the truth about George W. Bush today? Where's Deep
Throat when we need him,
now more than ever?
As bad as they were, Nixon's crimes weren't the worst
committed by an
American president. Indeed, former White House Counsel
John Dean - another
hero for warning Nixon about a "cancer growing on the
presidency" - argues
that George W. Bush is very much like Nixon in his
penchant for secrecy,
only worse. In his book, Worse Than Watergate, Dean
wrote: "George W. Bush
and Richard B. Cheney have created the most secretive
presidency of my
lifetime. Their secrecy is far worse than during
Watergate, and it bodes
even more serious consequences. . . . I must say this
administration is
truly scary and, given the times we live in,
frighteningly dangerous."
But the only way to blow the lid off the misdeeds of
the Bush administration
is to come up with our own Deep Throat. Somewhere in
the Bush White House,
for example, there is someone who knows the list of
special interest
lobbyists who met secretly with Cheney to develop the
administration's
energy policy.
Somewhere in the White House, CIA or Pentagon, there's
someone who was
present when Bush and Cheney decided to lean on a pack
of lies - about
nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction,
chemical-laden drones, mobile
weapons labs, long-range missiles, and Saddam
Hussein's ties to al-Qaida -
in order to sell the American people on the war in
Iraq.
Somewhere in the State Department, there is one
federal employee who knows
why President Bush won't release key documents about
John Bolton to the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Others inside the
administration could
unlock still more secrets. Who approved the orders to
torture Iraqi
prisoners of war? How many prisoners have been
"outsourced" for torture by
other countries? Who decided to leak the identity of
undercover CIA agent
Valerie Plame? Did Bush ever report for National Guard
service in Alabama?
With Bush, as with Nixon, we'll never know the truth
until one or more brave
souls are willing to speak out.
So now we know who Deep Throat is. Big deal. It means
nothing, unless Mark
Felt inspires Bush administration insiders to go and
do likewise. Blow the
whistle. Tell the truth. Expose the evildoers. Make
your country proud.
Any new source's success, of course, will depend on
finding reporters
courageous enough to dig for the truth, and not simply
regurgitate White
House propaganda. Sadly, that may be a harder task
than finding another Deep
Throat.
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