The Dishonor and Damage of "Deep Throat"

Deep Throat was the alias of the man who leaked the inside information about the Watergate break in and President Nixon's coverup. Without the information he provided it would have been difficult to bring Nixon down, which was his intention. This week it was disclosed that Mark Felt was the famous leaker at the same time he was at the top of the power structure in the FBI. Felt was deeply dishonest and did a lot of damage. He might not have committed a crime, but he violated the high trust many people had in him. First, and most obvious, he interfered with a criminal investigation. Chuck Colson, Nixon's special counsel, today said "Mark Felt could have stopped Watergate. He was in the position of that kind of influence. Instead, he goes out and basically undermines the administration. I don't think that's honorable at all." Pat Buchanan, who also worked in the White House, agrees and provide's Felt's motive. "It is not honorable in the middle of an investigation to grab material that you’ve dredged up which is supposed to go to the prosecutors who decide who to indict and slip it over to the Washington Post to damage a president in the middle of a campaign. "His motive, as Bob Woodward indicated, was that Mark Felt was passed over when Hoover died and Nixon gave the eulogy and then put L. Patrick Gray, who was very close to the president and was assistant attorney general, in charge of the FBI."

Deep Throat and Genocide

But here is the treat. At The American Spectator Ben Stein lists - in his humorous style - all the positive accomplishments of Richard Nixon.

He ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POW's, ended the war in the Mideast, opened relations with China, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty, saved Eretz Israel's life, started the Environmental Protection Administration... That is his legacy. He was a peacemaker. He was a lying, conniving, covering up peacemaker. He was not a lying, conniving drug addict like JFK, a lying, conniving war starter like LBJ, a lying, conniving seducer like Clinton -- a lying, conniving peacemaker. That is Nixon's kharma.

And the horrible results of ending Nixon's efforts:

1.) The defeat of the South Vietnamese government with decades of death and hardship for the people of Vietnam. 2.) The assumption of power in Cambodia by the bloodiest government of all time, the Khmer Rouge, who killed a third of their own people, often by making children beat their own parents to death. No one doubts RN would never have let this happen.

Yes, Nixon was hard to like and easy to dislike. But he set out to do accomplish improvements in foreign relations and was successful. So Stein calls him a peacemaker. I wouldn't choose that term, but it fits. The damage done by Felt was huge.