Mark Felt, formerly number two at the FBI, now claims to have been "Deep Throat," the anonymous source who guided Woodward and Bernstein's investigation of the Watergate scandal. The MSM is all over this thing. They've been speculating for decades as to whether or not Deep Throat was a person, a composite, a construct, a space alien, whatever. Now they're wallowing in it again. Why?
The reason is that Watergate is the founding myth of modern journalism, with all its reliance on unnamed sources, its tabloid excesses, its pretentions to political significance, its hostility to other sources of institutionalized power, etc. Deep Throat was one of the more exotic features of that myth stucture. He was the ultimate inside source, the patriotic whistle blower who revealed the dark recesses of government, the truth teller who brought down a president. Add to that the exotic machinations -- meetings late at night in dark garages, flower pots strategically placed as signals, the cagey clues -- "follow the money."
For members of the MSM, and for Nixon haters [two not mutually exclusive categories] Deep Throat was an irresistable subject for speculation, and the whole story a mastubatory fantasy. But does anybody else care? Not really.
Should they? Well, ask yourself "what difference does it make whether we attach a name to Deep Throat or not?" Other than the individuals directly involved and their families, the answer has to be, "it just doesn't matter." It's a footnote, and an obscure one at that.
As for the MSM and the Nixon Haters. They've wallowed far too long in that mud-hole. For too long they've viewed the world and their place in it through that particular distorting prism. It's a new world out there and for them it's time to move on.
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