Look who's choking now

I don’t like to talk politics. And I don’t like to write about anything that isn’t funny, but I have to comment on this Deep Throat debacle.

This is what “Deep Throat” Mark Felt said when interviewed.
"It would be contrary to my responsibility as a loyal employee of the FBI to leak information," he told journalist Timothy Noah six years ago, when questioned about his possible role as Deep Throat. I have to wonder how he managed to get that comment out without laughing.

But it’s the comments now about how Felt is the unsung hero that have really chapped me. Hero, my ass. This is more like it.

Wounded that he was passed over for the top job, furious at Nixon's choice of an outsider, Assistant Attorney General L. Patrick Gray III, as acting FBI director, and determined that the White House not be allowed to steer and stall the bureau's Watergate investigation, Mark Felt slipped into the role that would forever alter his life.

I hate to cloud the issue with the facts, but what about the law? You know, that agreement he made with the government when he got his job as a special agent? That he would uphold and defend the constitution and that he would not illegal disclose any information he received under the auspices of his employ?

When I was young, I used to ask my uncle about his work in the aerospace engineering field as a civilian employee for the navy. He was instrumental in engineering a fighter jet. His response was always the same—“Ten years and/or $10,000.” The penalty for disclosing top secret information. Not that I was asking for TS information. I wouldn’t have even known what the hell he was talking about. I had just seen Top Gun and thought it was cool that my uncle was the reason the plane flew.

It doesn’t appear that Felt’s actions were based on his heartfelt belief that a great injustice was being committed and the American people were being shafted. There was no nobility in his actions. He was pissed off because he got passed over for a job he wanted. I hardly thing that the anti-war protestors that were on the receiving end of his loose construction of the 4th amendment are thinking he is a hero now.

Don’t get me wrong. There is no justification for Nixon’s behavior. He was stupid and got caught. To believe that he was the first president to conspire as he did, or that he was the last, is naïve at best. One politician cheating on another? Big deal.