Not so Deep

Having been away for a while, I was a bit surprised not to find any comments on Deep Throat. Now, don't get me wrong: I don't think there is much to say about it. Ok, number 2 at the FBI, 91 year old guy. Terrific. Well done. Brought down Nixon. Somebody had to. Next.

But, the thing is, is that the American Right thinks there is an issue: was he a patriot or a traitor. And this just kills me. On the one hand, I'm impressed with their brazen, forward-thinking duplicity. After all, they need to challenge in advance any and all critique of the White House. On the other hand, I'm amazed that this venal 'debate' had any legs at all--and from the screens in airport bars and summaries in the mcpaper, it seems like it did and perhaps does. How could anyone doubt that Deep Throat violated the rules for the sake of something more, like constitutional goverance or even democratic rule of law? It tells us how silly these ideas seem today. And that is very, very sad.

Comments

[John Emerson]

None of the conservative critics of Felt seemed able to distinguish between personal loyalty to your boss (the Mafia code) and loyalty to institutions and ethical principles such as the rule of law, fairness and civility, or the public interest. They all have the thug code of honor.

This is exactly what the rule of law or ethics is all about -- escaping from, and suppressing the thug code. Nixon was a big Godfather fan because he thought that way himself. Omerta was everything, and ethics and law were nothing.

[RIPope]

Maybe the subtext of their discourse is: if you try to become the next Deep Throat, we'll treat you as a treacherous heathen. So shut the up.

[RIPope]

Oh wow, I wrote "shut the -expletive- up", but with brackets instead of dashes, and it really just took it out. And here I was trying to not write the dirty word. Jeeze.

[Matt]

I think the meaning still came across.

[A Disgruntled Postal Worker]

HTML is turned off in comments, so anything between a less-than and greater-than sign is considered a tag and gets stripped out. Speaking for myself, I've got no problem with anybody saying “fuck” in a comment or a post.