Free Dartmouth
 
  home  
  join
5/31/2005 06:13:00 PM | Timothy

The First Time I Felt Sorry for Wolf Blitzer
I was watched CNN 20 minutes ago or so, and Wolf's guest was Ted Turner. Wolf said he was on to advertise that tomorrow would be the 25th anniversary of CNN, but that first Wolf wanted to ask about the importance of the news that it had been confirmed that Deep Throat was Mark Felt, the #2 person at the F.B.I. under Nixon. Turner said that he did not think it was that important. It was a long time ago, a historical footnote, and that he was much more concerned about present days like nuclear war and peace. Ei. However, most of the cable news channels do not seem to be giving this much coverage: just a few minutes on the front of the hour. I've already heard twice that Mark Felt's motivation might have been that he felt jealous that he didn't get the top FBI job after Hoover died. Watch for that spin, to see if the attempt begins to make Mark Felt seem unpatriotic.

Update: The nightly news programs all lead, I believe, with Deep Throat. I watched NBC mostly (I can't stand that new anchor and the new format on CBS). I think both NBC and ABC mentioned as a motivation that Felt didn't get promoted. When Anderson Cooper 360 began on CNN, I didn't stay to watch "G.Gordon Liddy and others" talk about Deep Throat. Pat Buchanan was so much more interesting on Hardball, calling Felt a snake and saying it was a real act of disloyalty. He led off with saying what Felt's motivation was (see above, the meme floats). Buchanan then snuck in a reference in about how Felt was convicted of something. Buchanan did this under the guise of saying Felt was wrongly convicted of course- Buchanan said he defended him at the time. It was clear (to me) that Buchanan was trying to make Felt out to be a bad guy. Matthews asked what the charge was- it had something to do watching Vietnam protesters without a warrant- Buchanan said Felt was later pardoned by Reagan. At the end, Chris Matthews said of course you think Deep Throat was a bad guy, you guys lost! The Nixon defenders went after Felt by saying that basically that he was responsible for the Holocaust in South Vietnam. Matthews laughed at this and said you guys did Cambodia, and said the burgulers were responsible: blame the perpetrators, not the guys who uncovered it. Buchanan said that the people who brought down Nixon were worse than Nixon (!). Matthews said that was a theory, and said they had to go to a break.

Fox News had some historian/journalist who said that Deep Throat and the Washington Post didn't make a difference: it was prosecutions and investigations. Ben Veniste (former Watergate prosecuter and Clinton defender) said that without two things (the Post stories and the Nixon tapes), Nixon would have served out his full term.

Update 2: Drudge has had a headline up reading "Woodward: Felt himself had hopes he would be next FBI director..." Buchanan was back on MSNBC for Olberman. He immediately brought up the promotion motive, and quickly mentioned Felt's conviction. Before Buchanan, John Dean was on. It was an interesting interview. Basically Dean said that Felt did not quite fit. Dean thought this suggested Deep Throat was a composite, even though Woodward had denied it. He thought Woodward now had a lot to answer for. Olbermann said this all pointed to the idea that Deep Throat was a composite, with Mark Felt as the centerpiece.



0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Dartmouth
The Free Press

Alums for Social Change
The Green Magazine
The Dartmouth
Dartmouth Observer
Dartmouth Review
Dartlog
Inner Office
The Little Green Blog
Welton Chang's Blog
Vox in Sox
MN Publius (Matthew Martin)
Netblitz
Dartmouth Official News

Other Blogs
Ampersand

Atrios
Arts & Letters
Altercation
Body and Soul
Blog For America
Brad DeLong
Brad Plumer
CalPundit
Campus Nonsense
Clarksphere
Crooked Timber
Cursor
Daily Kos
Dean Nation
Dan Drezner
The Front Line
Instapundit
Interesting Times
Is That Legal?
Talking Points Memo
Lady-Likely
Lawrence Lessig
Lean Left
Left2Right
Legal Theory
Matthew Yglesias
Ms. Musings
MWO
Nathan Newman
New Republic's &c.
Not Geniuses
Ornicus
Oxblog
Pandagon
Political State Report
Political Theory Daily Review
Queer Day
Roger Ailes
SCOTUS blog
Talk Left
TAPPED
Tacitus
This Modern World
Tough Democrat
Untelevised
Volokh Conspiracy
Washington Note
X. & Overboard

Magazines, Newspapers and Journals
Boston Globe Ideas
Boston Review
Chronicle of Higher Education
Common Dreams
Dissent
In These Times
Mother Jones
New York Review of Books
New York Times
Salon
Slate
The American Prospect
The Nation
The New Republic
The Progressive
Tikkun
Tom Paine
Village Voice
Washington Monthly

Capitol Hill Media
ABC's The Note
American Journalism Review
Columbia Journalism Review
CQ
Daily Howler
Donkey Rising
The Hill
Medianews
National Journal
NJ Hotline
NJ Wake-up call
NJ Early Bird
NJ Weekly
Political Wire
Roll Call
Spinsanity

Search
Search the DFP

www.blogwise.com
Powered by Blogger

The opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of Dartmouth College or the Dartmouth Free Press.