Wednesday, February 9, 2005

Throat Mail

Ray Arthur writes...

Has Haig been discounted for practical reasons or just because Woodward, et al, said he was not? My thinking is, if Bernstein had talked too much, which he is wont to do, and Haig was D.T., they would have to lie and deny in order to protect the General. Has anyone checked Al's pulse lately?

Alexander Haig was a suspect as Deep Throat for a number of reasons, one being that he was in the perfect position to know everything. During the Watergate investigation, he went from working under Henry Kissinger to being Nixon's Chief of Staff, and he was never viewed as one of those Nixon folks who thought all reporters were evil. Moreover, the Woodward-Bernstein book, The Final Days, pretty much makes Haig out as a hero who is more interested in the well-being of the nation than in serving Nixon, and he was obviously a major source for the book. So that suggests a close connection to the authors, and perhaps the sense that they were rewarding him for past favors. Against this, there's the fact that he seems to have been out of town on the date of at least one reported Woodward-Throat meeting. (He was travelling with Kissinger, which presumably would also eliminate Henry as a suspect. I always thought Kissinger was the real longshot surprise to be Deep Throat, but there are those who've offered to bet their homes on it...this, even though Kissinger is a lifelong non-smoker, and we all know Deep Throat liked a cigarette with his Scotch.)

Haig was so bothered by reports that he was D.T. that he not only denied it, he persuaded Woodward and Bernstein to confirm his denial. For a long period, that was the only person they'd ever said was definitely not Deep Throat. At the time, Haig seemed to be a candidate — perhaps a longshot, but he wasn't about to admit it — for the presidency, which might explain why he was so insistent on not having folks think he was Deep Throat. Some might cheer the guy as a hero, but there are still folks high in the Republican party who wouldn't have that opinion.

I think the Woodward-Bernstein denial may be enough to cross Haig off the list. They didn't have to give him the absolution he requested, and they've always known that when the day came that Throat's identity would be revealed, they'd be coping with detractors who'd say it was a lie, there was no Deep Throat. So if I were Woodward and Bernstein, I sure wouldn't want to be on record as firmly denying by name that my source was my source. There's even footage of Bob Woodward saying, "Al Haig was absolutely not Deep Throat," which would doubtlessly resurface. I don't know if journalistic ethics say that you can lie like that to protect a source, and certainly there have lately been reporters who have absolutely lied in denying sources. But in this case, it seems like it would have been a foolish thing for Woodward and Bernstein to do, and neither of those gents has ever struck me as foolish, especially with regard to protecting their own reps.

Again, though, this is a case where some of us could be assuming way too much.

• Posted at 11:55 AM · LINK

Deli Double Delights

But hey, enough about our government being run into the ground financially. Let's talk about important stuff. Let's talk about delicatessens. And we'll start with this e-mail from my pal Tom Galloway...

This reminded me of when I was at UMichigan, and Harlan Ellison was speaking there. I was responsible for him while there, and come lunchtime the following dialogue occurred (from memory):

Tom: Harlan, we're taking you to lunch at a world class deli. (thinking "here it comes...")

Harlan: What?! We're in the midwest! I grew up in the midwest! There is no decent deli here, let alone a world class one. I've lived in New York City. I live in L.A. That's where you find great deli. Besides, you're a WASP from North Carolina, and I should trust you on great deli?

Tom: Trust me...

We take him to Zingerman's. While waiting in line to order, Harlan sniffed around. He approved of the Dr. Brown's, the seeds in the rye bread, etc. His sandwich was so big he could barely finish it, and I ended up getting to eat most of the noodle kugel he'd ordered. At the end of the meal, he sat back and said, "OK, you're right. I don't know what it's doing here, but it's definitely a world class deli."

Highly recommended if you're ever in the Detroit/Ann Arbor area.

Tom's a smart guy, and Harlan knows his delis. But what really impressed me was that a few hours later, I got an unsolicited second opinion. This is an e-mail from Mark Bernstein...

I just read your post on delis, and felt moved to comment. You may not realize it, but my home town of Ann Arbor, Michigan is home to one of the finest delis and gourmet shops in the U.S. It's called Zingerman's, and it's not just a local legend. Last year, it was named by Food and Wine magazine as one of the 25 best food markets in the world. Now, they don't pile the meat as high as the Carnegie (I'm reminded of Mitch Hedberg's line: "He gave me my sandwich and asked if I wanted anything else. I said. 'Yeah, a loaf of bread and more people.'"), but the quality is consistently outstanding. If you ever come back to the Motor City Comicon, I hereby offer, schedule permitting, to chauffeur you out to Ann Arbor for lunch or dinner.

Okay, so there are two good recommendations for Zingerman's and if I ever get invited to another convention in Detroit, I'm there. Meanwhile, closer to home for me, we have another one-two punch. This is from Paul Dini...

Respectfully submitted: Brent's Deli, 19565 Parthenia St. in Northridge. Best in the west, no contest. (Although the tuna salad at Nate 'n Al's is mighty good.)

This was followed by a message from Marv Wolfman...

The best deli in Los Angeles is, and has been (according to Zagat's for the last 10+ years) Brent's Deli in Northridge. It's as close to a New York deli as one can get (except less attitude). It is never less than crowded and the food is all wonderful. Brent's! Period! End of discussion!

I've been to Brent's a grand total of once and wasn't as impressed as my friends. Then again, I've had the occasional bad experience even at restaurants I like, so it's not fair to judge from one try, especially since this was some years ago. Next time I'm in Northridge — which I hope won't be soon, not because it's not a nice place but because I'm getting to hate driving that far — I will give Brent's another chance to thrill me. Mssrs. Wolfman and Dini are invited to join me, to suggest items from the menu and also, of course, to pay. The quality of any deli is enhanced by at least 25% if someone else picks up the check.

• Posted at 11:15 AM · LINK

More Throat Talk

Maybe it's like being shocked that a duck quacks, but I continue to be amazed at how reporters will try to manufacture a story where none exists. The other night, KNBC news in Los Angeles did a sizzling "exclusive" investigation that revealed that a person who has no way to knowing any of this is sure he knows who Deep Throat is, that Deep Throat is not ill, and that it's not George Herbert Walker Bush, Gerald Ford or Alexander Haig. Woodward, Bernstein and Haig have all said it's not Haig, so that last one is not much of a scoop.

They broadcast a brief, newly-conducted interview with Donald Segretti, who was one of the political pranksters employed by the Nixon campaign during the 1972 election. (This is the guy played by Robert Walden in the movie, All the President's Men.) As Watergate figures go, it would be hard to find anyone farther from the action than Segretti, who was in California throughout most of that investigation. Not only that but once it came out that he'd done some unethical things on behalf of the Committee to Re-Elect the President, everyone in the Nixon White House wanted to distance themselves from the guy. So he was not exactly in close communication...and even if he was, it was with folks who didn't know who Deep Throat was, either.

At first, I couldn't figure out why KNBC thought this fellow's guesses are any better than anyone else's guesses...and then I realized: They don't. They just knew they could get a segment out of it that sounded like inside information if you didn't stop to think about it for more than a few seconds. In the news biz, a worthless story is still worth more than no story at all.

One other thought about the hunt for Deep Throat: The vast majority of guesses and speculations about his identity have been based on who had access to the information he is known to have passed on to Bob Woodward. For instance, Deep Throat told the reporter about the gap on a crucial Nixon tape at a time when only a handful of people had that information...so most of the hunters have presumed that it had to be one of those folks. But secrets get leaked and shared all the time in Washington. Why couldn't it have been someone who heard about it from someone in that handful? If we buy the premise that one of them revealed the secret to the Washington Post, why wouldn't someone in that handful have told the guy with the office across the hall from his? Why couldn't Deep Throat have been an aide to someone in that handful who accidentally overheard something he wasn't supposed to hear? I'm not sure there's ever been a known fact about D.T. that absolutely rules out that he was a White House janitor who was within earshot when Henry Kissinger was yelling at Alexander Haig.

Almost every news story about Deep Throat has gotten caught up in the idea that it had to be someone with direct knowledge. In much the same way, they also claim that the informant's identity is known only to Woodward, Bernstein and Post editor Benjamin Bradlee. Well, uh, there's at least one other person...Throat, himself. And maybe he told his wife and his kids and his lawyer and his clergyman and a few friends. Deep Throat has been under no promise of confidentiality, and he must know that the day after he dies, everyone around him is going to be peppered with questions, and asked to confirm or deny.

But that's not as interesting a story. It's more interesting if it's a secret known to only three human beings on the face of the planet. And it's a better detective novel if you restrict the suspect list to those who could have gotten the information first-hand and then snuck out in the middle of the night to meet Woodward in that parking garage. (I always thought that parking garage was a tipoff of something. Why not have Woodward come to his apartment where there was less chance of them being spotted together? Logic would suggest that D.T. had a spouse or roommate he didn't want to implicate in his leaking at the time...or maybe he lived across the hall from John Mitchell. But maybe he just liked the 007 nature of meeting in a garage.) I'm still guessing it's Mark Felt or perhaps Fred Fielding...but we may all learn a lesson about how worthless deductions can be when you aren't careful about what you assume to be the underlying facts.

• Posted at 9:58 AM · LINK

The Saga of Stan Lee Media (Cont.)

Here's the latest on Peter Paul, the financial officer behind the now-defunct Stan Lee Media. That was the Internet company that went belly-up trying to market Stan's new concepts on the web. I have more than a passing interest in this because I worked there for a few months.

• Posted at 12:17 AM · LINK

February 10, 2005 • Current • February 8, 2005