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'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confirmed

By Jeralyn, Section Other Politics
Posted on Tue May 31, 2005 at 02:57:03 PM EST
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Bump and Update: Woodward confirms.

Update: Cadillac Tight points to the 1981 statement of Ronald Regan who pardoned Mr. Felt. Slate reported in 1999 that Nixon suspected Mark Felt and has the tape transcripts between him and H.R. Haldeman. Today at Slate, Tim Noah says Told You So.

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Original Post

Raw Story reports on the new Vanity Fair article, available free here (pdf), in which former FBI agent W. Mark Felt, now 91, finally admits to being "Deep Throat," the confidential source used by Woodward and Bernstein to unravel Watergate.

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    'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confirmed | 42 comments (42 topical)
    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#22)
    by Sailor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:29 PM EST
    Nice try Jim. So how do you feel about the actual topic? Personally, I always hoped I would know this patriot's name before I kicked. What are your thoughts?

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#23)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:29 PM EST
    Great post, Sailor. Leave it to PPJ to play devil's advocate to Watergate, for God's sake. If that twisted BS is the best you can come up with.....LMFAO I highly recommend the book by Bob Woodward (don't recall the name)about his and Bernstein's investigation. It's chunky but fascinating how it all unravelled - a great summer read and a lesson in the power of the Executive Office as well as a time capsule (there were pics in my copy).

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#24)
    by Quaker in a Basement on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:29 PM EST
    "Powerline has a unusal take..."
    You don't say.

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#25)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:29 PM EST
    I have a question...what were the burglars that broke into the Watergate that night looking for?

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#26)
    by Quaker in a Basement on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:29 PM EST
    It wasn't what they wanted to take, Ernesto, it was what they wanted to leave behind. The burglars bugged the Democratic party offices. In addition, I think G. Gordon Liddy has claimed they were looking for information about the Democratic party hiring prostitutes or something silly like that.

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#27)
    by MikeDitto on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:29 PM EST
    The Rethugs are still not beneath breaking in and bugging their opponents. It's one of Karl Rove's most popular dirty tricks. In the most famous case, I believe he was bugging the campaign office of his guy's Republican primary opponent. Remember when the Bush administration bugged the offices of the UN? Wonder where that story went... The same place as the Downing Street memo. Liberal media my ass.

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#28)
    by Domino on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:29 PM EST
    I was hoping that Hal Holbrook was playing himself.

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#29)
    by Sailor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:29 PM EST
    Thanks mfox, "All the President's Men"? Title was an homage to "All the Kings Men" with Broderick Crawford I believe. MichaelMichael* - good points, perhaps I was too subtle in pointing out that when we had a free press, they actually questioned authority instead of facillitating it. * That's the equivalent of Michael Ditto, right?;-)

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:30 PM EST
    WOW!!!!! Some of us oldies have been speculating for YEARS!!! Haven't even read it yet!

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:30 PM EST
    Woodward states only that he and B. will neither confirm nor deny. They said they are holding to their pledge to only announce the identity after DT has died. I've always wondered about Felt, but he wouldn't have been my 1'st guess.

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#3)
    by Mreddieb on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:30 PM EST
    I will be 60 in two weeks and I always thought to myself, Not in my lifetime. Well, as usual, I was wrong. Now to my reaction, It can best described from a phrase in afamous song by Peggy Lee. "Is that all there is?, Is that all there is?"

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:30 PM EST
    Happy Birthday, Ed. As usual, reality is much more boring than our imagined plot theories lol. Apparently Felt was under the radar for a lot of folks.

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#5)
    by Mreddieb on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:30 PM EST
    Mfox Thankyou Then again maybe this guy just want his 15 min before he kicks the bucket. Thats the ticket a schill for the real Deep Throat! Let's keep conspiracys alive. Now back to, have aliens actually taken over Dick and W's bodies

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#6)
    by MikeDitto on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:30 PM EST
    W & B are still protecting their source's identity primarily because they don't feel from an ethical standpoint that Felt is capable of giving consent--he's apparently in pretty bad shape. W & B have been willing to deny the identities of people in the past (Haig for instance), so the fact that they won't deny Felt as the identity of Deep Throat could be telling in and of itself. I imagine from a legal standpoint however that if Felt is in that bad of shape his family probably has power of attorney and could waive the confidentiality on his behalf, which I imagine is how they saw it. The reports I'm hearing indicate that Felt is in such bad shape that his death is basically imminent, and his family wanted what they see as his heroism to be revealed while he was still alive.

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:30 PM EST
    Thanks, Ditto! He was a hero (hint, hint to any morally compromised but patriotic citizens in possession of higher office)

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:30 PM EST
    ED, I would tend to doubt that 15 minutes of fame sounds as good at ninety-something than it did at my modest forty-something LOL.

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#9)
    by Quaker in a Basement on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:31 PM EST
    Wingers! Let the wild revisionary rumpus begin! I predict that within 48 hours, the portside blogosphere will be chockablock with Mr. Felt's crimes against civilization.

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#10)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:31 PM EST
    The FBI How Ironic.

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#11)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:31 PM EST
    Bob (the "Boob") Novak has already labeled Felt "one of Hoovers toadies".

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:31 PM EST
    Although apparently ill, Felt was photgraphed at his home in Santa Rosa, CA and he looks pretty good for ninty + It seems as if his daughter and grandchildren were the impetus for him to reveal his identity. The daughter is quoted as saying --why should Woodward get all the glory...

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#13)
    by pigwiggle on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:31 PM EST
    And why should we care? I understand, for all you folks that were around way back when, this has some kind of loose end appeal. But for those around my age deep throat is a movie.

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:31 PM EST
    pigwiggle: Actually I believe that both the movie and watergate are in the same timeframe, around 1972.

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#15)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:31 PM EST
    And why should we care?
    Because we need another one like him more than ever these days. Except the MSM probably wouldn't even be interested in doing the story...

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#16)
    by DawesFred60 on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:31 PM EST
    Back in the day it was known who he was really worked for and why he did what he did, Felt was working for the right but not for the reasons you think he was working for. deep throat was an FBI Guy but he was also working for others not of this nation or its ideals and people will never tell who he worked for. his real loves or not what you think. I will say nothing more. by the way both bernstein and woodward were both played for that story and never knew why, until now.

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#17)
    by Sailor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:31 PM EST
    pigwiggle - he got his code name from the movie, so the movie came first. As to why yougsters like you should care; we had a president that used the fbi and the cia and buglars to try to hijack an election. An assault on the constitution and free elections. The term watergate (see irangate, rathergate, coingate ... etc. ) was coined then because of the location. (stupid aside that means nothing to anyone but me and mine, I stayed at the HoJo's across the street for a week during the time it was broken into;-) It matters to america at the same level as teapot dome, burr/hamilton and the pentagon papers. This was back when we had a free press that would pursue a story. It wasn't that 'he brought down a president', it was the fact that he helped restore the constitution. He was one of the heroes of american history.

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (none / 0) (#18)
    by ppjakajim on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:31 PM EST
    et al - Powerline has a unusal take on what was done and why.

    Re: 'Deep Throat' Identity: W. Mark Felt - Confi (