Thursday, June 02, 2005
What happens when you look in the mirror and it screams back, HYPOCRITE!
There are no heroes in the Watergate scandal.
Not Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose investigative reporting took down a President and set forth the wheels of distrust, scandal chasing, and modern muckraking now in epidemic form in journalism. Those wheels spin faster and faster each day, almost as fast as the bankrolls these two have gotten from their exploits in the 1970's, through now, as paid political consultants to the media...they're benefitting from the feeding frenzied media climate they helped create.
Not President Nixon, whose paranoia, personal bitterness and demons led to this scandal and his downfall. Nixon's wanton desire to eliminate all dissenters was frightening and truly a shame, as he was one the smartest, shrewdest, and most worldly-thinking leaders this country has ever had. he was the last imperial president; the jury is still out as to whether or not that is a good thing.
Not Mark Felt. What was his motivation to break the law? Was it because he was passed over to replace his hero, J. Edgar Hoover? Was he simply a "jilted lover?" (no pun intended) Was this his way of getting back at the Nixon administration? If so, don't his actions seem a bit like those of the President whose reign he was intent on toppling? Fighting fire with fire? Gee, i didn't know the FBI followed Hammurabi's code.
Was it, as Woodward wrote today in the Washington Post (in a perfectly crafted tome that he has had sitting and idling as b-matter until Felt's final breath on this earth), Felt, in his early days in the bureau, was a counter-intelligence agent. was this a case of pining for the days of old and playing cloak and dagger?
And if you're looking for heroes, it's certainly not Mark Felt's family. Something about his admissions of being "Deep Throat" smacks of the late John Henry Williams, the son of former Red Sox slugger Ted Williams who looked at his father's legacy as an ATM.
You can read between the lines and see his kids gathered around, as felt is drooling in his vanilla pudding, trying to postulate a way to make the biggest buck possible with book deals, news magazine show appearances and exclusive interviews: "hey, if we prop Pop up, comb his hair, and tell him to smile, then we can hold a press conference..."
Bottom line: Mark Felt took an oath, to protect the laws and ideals of this country. It is an oath requiring blind faith and obedience. If at any point said faith and obedience is compromised as personal beliefs make it impossible to do ones job, then it is imperative to eliminate that situation and resign.
Make no bones about it, there are no heroes in the Watergate situation. It was not a glamourous time in this nation. It marked the end of an era of "good journalism," as paul begala called it, and the beginning of the era of media sensationalism. It began the race not to get scooped, as many of the nation's most revered dailies were by the washington post. It began the use - and ultimate overuse - of terms like "smoking gun" and the addition of "-gate" to any sort of scandal that the modern day Woodsteins are chasing, fresh out of J-School.
(oh, and by the way, Nixon was never convicted of any crime. Mark Felt was. ironically enough...for illegal wiretapping and surveillance.)
Not Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose investigative reporting took down a President and set forth the wheels of distrust, scandal chasing, and modern muckraking now in epidemic form in journalism. Those wheels spin faster and faster each day, almost as fast as the bankrolls these two have gotten from their exploits in the 1970's, through now, as paid political consultants to the media...they're benefitting from the feeding frenzied media climate they helped create.
Not President Nixon, whose paranoia, personal bitterness and demons led to this scandal and his downfall. Nixon's wanton desire to eliminate all dissenters was frightening and truly a shame, as he was one the smartest, shrewdest, and most worldly-thinking leaders this country has ever had. he was the last imperial president; the jury is still out as to whether or not that is a good thing.
Not Mark Felt. What was his motivation to break the law? Was it because he was passed over to replace his hero, J. Edgar Hoover? Was he simply a "jilted lover?" (no pun intended) Was this his way of getting back at the Nixon administration? If so, don't his actions seem a bit like those of the President whose reign he was intent on toppling? Fighting fire with fire? Gee, i didn't know the FBI followed Hammurabi's code.
Was it, as Woodward wrote today in the Washington Post (in a perfectly crafted tome that he has had sitting and idling as b-matter until Felt's final breath on this earth), Felt, in his early days in the bureau, was a counter-intelligence agent. was this a case of pining for the days of old and playing cloak and dagger?
And if you're looking for heroes, it's certainly not Mark Felt's family. Something about his admissions of being "Deep Throat" smacks of the late John Henry Williams, the son of former Red Sox slugger Ted Williams who looked at his father's legacy as an ATM.
You can read between the lines and see his kids gathered around, as felt is drooling in his vanilla pudding, trying to postulate a way to make the biggest buck possible with book deals, news magazine show appearances and exclusive interviews: "hey, if we prop Pop up, comb his hair, and tell him to smile, then we can hold a press conference..."
Bottom line: Mark Felt took an oath, to protect the laws and ideals of this country. It is an oath requiring blind faith and obedience. If at any point said faith and obedience is compromised as personal beliefs make it impossible to do ones job, then it is imperative to eliminate that situation and resign.
Make no bones about it, there are no heroes in the Watergate situation. It was not a glamourous time in this nation. It marked the end of an era of "good journalism," as paul begala called it, and the beginning of the era of media sensationalism. It began the race not to get scooped, as many of the nation's most revered dailies were by the washington post. It began the use - and ultimate overuse - of terms like "smoking gun" and the addition of "-gate" to any sort of scandal that the modern day Woodsteins are chasing, fresh out of J-School.
(oh, and by the way, Nixon was never convicted of any crime. Mark Felt was. ironically enough...for illegal wiretapping and surveillance.)
