Friday, June 10, 2005

Deep Throat not Mark Felt?

The revelation that Mark Felt was Deep Throat did not interest me at all. That should be evident by the fact that I dedicated precious few pixels to the the story here at Jiblog. Now, the possibility that Mark Felt wasn't Deep Throat, now that is interesting. And that is exactly the story Ann Coulter pushed forward this week (HT GOP Bloggers):
As most people had generally assumed, the shadowy figure who made his first appearance in a late draft of "All The President's Men" was a composite of several sources — among them, apparently, Mark Felt. But in telling the glorious story of "How The Washington Post Saved America," it was more thrilling to portray Deep Throat as a single mysterious individual, spilling his guts to Bob Woodward.
Among some of the inconsistencies in Woodward & Bernstein's Deep Throat/Watergate story:
-Deep Throat supposedly drank and smoked heavily. That ain't Felt.
-The Deep Throat/Woodward signaling system was not possible. The balcony at the rear of Woodward's apartment was not visible from the ground, making his red flag signal of DT impossible. Newspapers were piled in the lobby, making DT's signal of Woodward impossible.
-The movie Bernstein slipped into and which gave DT his name was not playing in DC at that time.
-Felt's daughter has an ulterior motive for her dad being DT. She needs the money.
-Woodward has an ulterior motive for DT being Felt-his reputation.
Here's why I find this story interesting now. Woodward's reputation is on the line. He has confirmed that Felt was DT, but it doesn't completely fit. The Deep Throat story gets a whole lot more interesting if we find out for sure that its authors, Woodward & Bernstein, were not actually these intrepid hero journalists, but actually a couple of guys who played fast and loose with the facts in order to make the story sexier and to fit their vision. In fact, that would make them the fathers of modern journalism.

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