perfidy

Well, that's not quite true - in one forum or another, I state the obvious multiple times per day, and for that I apologize.

But here's a case where the WSJ's Brendan Miniter has done it, and it seems to me to be a public service:

Hero or not, Mark Felt did America a great service

Just when I thought that nobody in a position to widely disseminate such a rational thought was going to do so, Mr. Miniter comes and says:

This is an open memo to those on the right who've spent the past week chastising their counterparts on the left for calling Mark Felt, a k a "Deep Throat," a hero. It's true that the recently outed Watergate supersource might have acted for his own interests, and that real heroes pay the price for their heroism instead of hiding in the shadows of a parking garage. It is therefore difficult to laud his personal character or portray him as someone young people should emulate.

But if Mr. Felt isn't personally a hero, his actions look a lot more heroic than the actions of those who've had the most biting words for the now 91-year-old man who at the time was the No. 2 official at the FBI. Pat Buchanan, a former speechwriter for Richard Nixon, called Mr. Felt a "snake." Charles Colson, another Nixon aide, who served seven months in prison for obstruction of justice, said Mr. Felt was "violating his oath to keep this nation's secrets." Watergate conspirator turned radio personality G. Gordon Liddy, who also served time, is quoted as saying bluntly that Mr. Felt "violated the ethics of the law enforcement profession."

Sounds about right to me, since I was tired of the whining revisionists' history-polishing after the first of the participants opened his gaping pie-hole on the matter.

Miniter's take is a good one, and I commend it to your attention.

[wik] George Friedman, in the Geopolitical Intelligence Report which hit my mailbox a couple hours ago, covers the underpinnings of Felt's methods, along with some of his motivations, and comes to some very obvious conclusions that, ahem, hadn't even crossed my mind. I can't find a link for the briefing at his site, but if anyone's interested, I'd happily forward the Stratfor email.

[alsø wik] For the truly intrepid, the Onion's take on the matter