W. Mark "Deep Throat" Felt

If you were to describe W. Mark "Deep Throat" Felt in a word, what would it be?

Hero
Traitor

Hero!

You can't be a traitor to a lying thief who misuses the power of his elected office.

Nixon and those who went merrily along with his crimes were the traitors.

I voted "Hero" but that's only because he's so utterly NOT a traitor. He's not really a hero, either. He confirmed what others suspected or openly said about the Watergate affair. Its not like he saved people from a burning building.

But to be called a traitor, only because his identity was made known in an era of ultra-nationalistic fervor - a time when politicians apparently deserve our fawning unquestioning adulation lest we be branded traitors ourselves - well, that's ridiculous, disgusting and pathetic. As Red said, the real traitors were Nixon et. al. who put their own re-election goals above the law and the Supreme Court.

Doing the right thing while jeopardizing your career and possibly your own personal safety is most definately heroic.

Some people feel he is a Traitor and they say nothing. People who feel he is a hero say why. If you think he is a Traitor can you tell us why?

He may have broken oaths.

Betrayed his President and the Admisistration he served.

Neither of course is Treason.

Nixon and his people broke the law. Felts wanted him cuaght , sounds like all the motivations why are unclear.

So Felts is a whistleblower. He did quite possibly risk his life, it hard to say, the stakes were pretty high though.

Hero or Traitor? neither. Getting the story out of what the Adminstration was up to was pretty important. And necesarry.

He did a good thing - maybe not for the purest of motives, but a good, necessary thing.

I don't know if that's enough to make him a hero, but he's no villain.

Was his oath to the President or to the American People? Was his oath not to uphold the law? Was a law not broken?


Does he serve the President and the Administration or the People of the USA?


Could be he was a Demarcate or it could be he was some one that believes in right and wrong.


Maybe not his life but his lively hood. He put his life (maybe not “life) on the line. He could have been hurt. He could have lost his job. He could have been black balled. He could have had a 100000000 things done to him.


When a person risks every thing I would have to say he is a Hero. Was he a Traitor? No more then our Founding Fathers.

If an oath sworn cop found out about an illegal act, then ran to the media...instead of law enforcement, how would you react?

I'm sure in this case someone will claim that he feared for his family and life....but why did he continue to stay in the FBI then? How could he trust W&B to keep the secret anymore than any D.C. detective? Why not at least leak his details to say...a democratic senator...then let him report it? It's because Felt did not want to get justice for a crime, he wanted to hurt the president, and that is scary (what if one of your local cops started to take his duties so personally, would you consider him a hero?). Don't get me wrong, it was a crime...Nixon was a crook and he got what he deserved, but Felt's method only acted to hurt the country by further inciting division in a populace that was already past critical mass.

On another note: How pathetic is it that this close to oldtimers disease ninety-something-year-old is now being paraded out by his daughter for cash-money-dollar-dollar-bills (She was on CNN saying she is a single mother in financial distress...boo friggin' hoo)...Don't worry, just prop up ole' daddy and make him dance (just keep an eye on that diaper), he won't remember it in a few days....

Note numero 2: This guy has been publically saying in his local area that he was DT for years....CBS & Newsweak are taking a brutal beating due to their apparent lack of integrity. Strange how the media's greatest political coup pops back onto the nation's stage...just at the right time to bury the newsweek fiasco...

well I am not sure, but I think his oath is probably to both the President and the People.

Lets all be realistic .. theres a lot that goes on behind the scenes in an Administration that we dont know about. Theres surely many things that are in a legal grey area that go on all the time.

Felts felt that Nixon crossed the line of the way things were done. And Felt wanted them to get cuaght. Yes part of the reason could be that he felt his oath to the United States superceeded his loyalty to his President.

While im not sure hes a Hero , he did do something dangerous to him in either life or Livlihood.

Traitor? of course not. Treason has a Very specific definition that involves only war by citizens on the United States.

Being I have lived in Chicago land my whole life I got to say I would feel ok about that. In Chicago you can’t go to law enforcement because the people in charge are the problem.



Who controls the FBI? Does not the director report to Attorney General? Maybe we are all guessing here but could it not be a guess to say he didn’t truest them to go what needed to be done? Why stay with the FBI, because you believe in the work?


Maybe because politics was more politics back them. Meaning today the R&D just go after each other. Back in the day they used things to there advantage but with out you and I knowing. They would have held it over the Administrations head. This also is wrong.


You say he wanted to hurt the president, were do you get that? He didn’t want Justus? He got Justus didn’t he? And about the Cop, In Chicago that has happened and yes I do consider them heroes.


And how do you know that Nixon would have ever got what he deserved with out the people of the USA being told up front about it?


Oh I can’t agree more on that one.

The gist of your argument AISI, Lupo, is that cops or governments do bad things (in Chi-town...and prolly other places as well)...and therefore it is ok for a cop who "feels" that his brand of justice will not be served to do what he deems necessary to get the job done, right?

What about search warrants? If your local cop decides that a judge will side with a criminal and not grant one, should he therefore go ahead and break in, even if the outcome is that evidence is found? What gives the cop the right (legal, elitist, divine or otherwise) to decide that the judge is wrong? What gives him the right to leapfrog the framwork in place to air greviences against the judge if appropriate? What if the above search warrant scenario is successful, and somehow the courts let in the found evidence...and then later another cop does the exact same thing for criminal reasons (say, planting drugs on someone)? This is called the slippery slope. Let someone bend the rules for even a good reason and you open the door to the thousands who will bend them for their own...
Breaking the law (or a sworn oath to uphold the law) for a good reason is still breaking the law (or your oath). As for who he may have swore an oath to, it's a matter of symantics. He still did not act correctly in his position, for whatever his reasoning may be.

Close but no.
IF they feel there hand is tied and there is no way to get Legal Justus then going to the Public is ok. A news paper is a form of the public.




If said Cop feels the Judge is dirty and working for the Criminals then I would say he should try and bring down the Judge. Throw Local State or federal means. If none of them would work in that case then again throw the Public


Did I ever say he had that right? No I said if the Person in charge is dirty and the only way to get to him is throw the People then I say go for it.


Again your putting Apples and Oranges together there. I am not saying to go out side the law. I am saying go to the People and have them force the Government to do what is right.


Again your putting Apples and Oranges together there. I am not saying to go out side the law. I am saying go to the People and have them force the Government to do what is right.



Depending on HOW the are bent. We are not talking about any Constitution Law being broke by him are we? In yours we are. That is were the difference is. Show me were agent Felt broke Constitution Law?


No the semantics is the point here. If his sworn oath was to the President then he was wrong. If his sworn oath he did was to the People of the USA then no LAW was broken no Oath was broken. Show me what law he broke.

I have a hangover, ignore me. LOL

He was a FBI agent not a Reporter!

Ok I just woke up. But he was doing his job, that doesnt necessarily make him a hero. Not everything is black and white.

There's a whole lot of superior to go to if you're a cop. He was the 2nd in command of the FBI! If his boss and the Executive branch was in on it, where exactely does he go without jepardizing himself and his family?



Maybe he wanted to remain in a place where he could do the most good? Tell it to a cop? A cop? Sure, a DC policeman going to go investigate criminal activites of the President with the FBI heads covering it up. I'd love to see a movie about it. A Senator? We've all seen how much good it does for one politician to point a finger at a president screaming CRIMINAL!!




You're just tossing out a personal opinion there. And if a local cop found out the department heads were criminals, yeah, I would think well of him if he did the best he could to expose them. If the best he could was to tell a reporter to uncover the criminals in the most public and hardest to suppress way, more power to him.



Uh, no, no he didn't. He resigned in disgrace, that's all. He desearved just a little bit more.



This may have been the only option for him to uncover the entire mess publically. Spotlight the whole operation in one huge blaze, rather than give people time and opportunity to muddle the facts and cover their asses.




Uh, it was his choice, he wanted to tell before he died.

People seem to be forgetting that we're talking about the people at THE TOP OF THE LEGAL FOOD CHAIN! We're not talking about people who had lots or resources and options. The example of the cop? Well, there's the Justice dept, the internal affairs dept, the FBI, the State police and on and on.

What if there IS no one above you that you can trust because you are just a few steps away from the president? A local cop is a helluva long way from the top of the ladder, the 2nd in command of the FBI doesn't have very many superiors to go to, and if he can't trust them ... then what?

So, again. It is left to DT to decide the proper way to handle this? He was not the director...So, because he "felt " that he couldn't go to his superiors, he was right to leak info to reporters, breaking his oath and all protocols of his station...
Well shit, I now "feel" like killing your pets, and I am totally in the right 'cause I "feel" that the laws are wrong and that I will be unfairly treated by animalist forces within our government...

Note: Actually I love animules...the fictional threat to house pets was for descriptive purposes only.
Note 2: When you read the above, you have to actually do the "quote fingers" everytime you read "Feel" or "felt"

He was a hero and paved the way for other heroic people like Linda Tripp... oh wait... that's right... you are only a hero if you are bringing down a Republican and vilified if you are bringing down a Democrat. Nice double standard there libs!!! At least "try" to be consistent.

Problem with that argument is...

...

why am I even bothering?

*leaves*

A timeline of Watergate events: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/watergate/chronology.htm


Looks like Nixon went a long way towards hanging himself in the matter, with or without Deep Throat's help.

His aides (Liddy and McCord, and gee, I wonder who's been flapping their yap about "traitors" on Fox News?) were convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping. His two top aides and the Attorney General resigned over it. He abolished the office of special prosecutor because they were getting too close to the truth and wanted the tapes of recordings in his office, and the NEW Attorney General PLUS the Deputy Attorney general resign. The Supreme Court came down unanimously on Nixon to release the tapes, the House Judiciary Committee passed three articles of impeachment (obstruction of justice), and Nixon resigns rather than get impeached.

If you can equate Clinton's blowjob with Nixon's looooooooong list of crimes he oversaw and ordered, then I for one would love to see your logic spelled out.

Clinton and Nixon, both who I despise, committed crimes... and got exactly what they deserved. The difference here is the treatment of the whistleblower... lol

Really? What crime did Clinton commit?

Quite a bit different.

Nixon knew about and covered up after the fact an attempt to bug the Democtratic National Commitee Offices.

Even more, it was BEFORE an election.

Had they been sucessful they would have been able to listen to some of the converstions of the opposition.

Who knows how much this would have affected the various candidates?

He then directed his people to cover it all up.

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Clinton was being investigated for sexual harassment of Paula Jones.

He lied about an Affair with one of his Interns. Potentially Relevant in a harassment case.

He tried to tamper with Monica's testimony. And Cover up the fact of the affair. He then lied (well played games with the truth and definitions) under oath to keep this affair from coming to light, largly for political reasons.


Other then the fact they were both cover ups and both had broken laws there is an enormous difference in the Magnitude of the offenses as they pertain to a President's responsibilities.

An attempt to tamper with the opposition by a sitting president is tantamount to side stepping the Constitution.

As far as how serious the crimes were its more like the difference between Shoplifting (Clinton) and Armed Bank Robbery (Nixon).