Lucianne writes funny blurbs. Under a link to a USA Today story about Mark Felt, she wrote: “Last gasp of Geezergate due next week as book mistakenly displayed in Fairfax store.”
A bookstore in Fairfax County, Virginia, displayed Bob Woodward’s new book, The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat, too early, but that’s not what the story is about.
People suspect that Woodward and Carl Bernstein are lying about who Deep Throat is, including University of Illinois professor Bill Gaines, who led a four-year investigation with his journalism students. But Woodward stands his ground and clears up some apparent discrepancies.
Woodward addresses the points that led some to decide Felt hadn’t been Deep Throat:
- In November 1973, Felt gave Woodward one of the most important scoops of the time: that there were gaps in an Oval Office recording of President Nixon, indicating someone may have erased incriminating information. Felt knew about the gaps, even though he retired from the FBI several months earlier, because he was still “in touch with many friends” at the bureau, Woodward writes.
- Felt may not have been a “regular smoker,” Woodward writes, but he could have been the type of person who lights up a cigarette “in times of immense stress.” Regardless, Woodward repeats that Felt did smoke during some of their clandestine meetings. (Source)
The Deep Throat story has been overblown for years. I think Woodward and Bernstein exaggerated and dramatized a bit to keep things interesting. Bringing down a president and exposing a scandal that reverberates through the halls of power may sound intriguing, but to jaded Americans, a football game is more exciting. Besides, who still cares after all these years?
I do.
My weekend starts…now. See you Monday or Tuesday.
Related posts: Deep Throat and the Great Stenographers, Trailer for All the President’s Men, and Former FBI Man Is Deep Throat.
Addendum: One more item. The friend I mentioned in this post has an article on National Review Online. Check it out.
