I dunno about the other cable channels but MSNBC turned into the Bash Deep Throat Channel yesterday afternoon. They had three or four shows in a row on the unmasking of Mark Felt as the fabled secret source and Pat Buchanan was on every one of them to call Felt a "snake" or worse. At times, he was joined or spelled by other former Nixon aides, including David Gergen, G. Gordon Liddy, Monica Crowley and Chuck Colson, all suggesting that Felt had impure motives, that he disgraced his position, etc. One can understand a certain anger at the figurehead of Nixon's bringdown, but it seemed like a strained exercise. Any "whistleblower" is, almost by definition, going to cause his peers to feel betrayed. If nothing else, they have cause to be embarrassed that he did something to uncover wrongdoing while they supported it with their complicity.
For years after he got out of the slammer, Liddy was making the rounds of the talk shows, flogging his book and comparing John Dean to Judas Iscariot…an analogy which, as many interviewers pointed out, worked if you thought Richard Nixon was somehow comparable to Jesus Christ. Liddy kept saying that one of the lowest things one can do in the world is to "rat" on your friends, which struck me as a silly schoolyard comparison. You don't tell the teacher that Jimmy used too many paper towels in the little boys' room but if others are involved in serious crimes and you know about it, that's a different matter. One time, Liddy was advancing his view on Larry King's program and, in a rare instance of Mr. King challenging a guest, he asked how Liddy felt about some of John Gotti's men turning on him and testifying to help get him convicted. Were they "rats?" I remember the moment because it was one of those rare times on an interview show when you could see someone get knocked out. Liddy didn't have an answer.
Still, that seems to be the big complaint against Felt; that he was disloyal to the Bureau and/or Richard Nixon. I don't know that I buy any definition of loyalty that's remotely in that area. The FBI was being compromised. J. Edgar Hoover, who was too feisty and independent for any president to control, had died and his replacement was L. Patrick Gray, a virtual Nixon puppet who dealt with the Watergate scandal by keeping the White House briefed on the investigation and by destroying potentially incriminating documents. Felt's "sin" was not falling in line with an FBI that was moving in that direction.
I don't know that I'd call Mark Felt a "hero" — not without knowing more about his motives. But the rush by Nixon loyalists to tar his name is shameful. There was wrongdoing in that administration and if everyone had bought into their current definition of "loyalty," it would never have been exposed. Maybe that's all they wanted.