Was “Deep Throat” a Hero?

As most folks have probably seen by now, the mysterious Watergate source for Woodward and Bernstein nicknamed “Deep Throat” has been unmasked as W. Mark Felt, then #2 man at the FBI, and now the debate is raging over whether Mr. Throat (as he probably was not known to his friends) was a hero or a criminal.

As so often happens, this seems to be split down party lines, and I’m really not sure where to lean.

The Republican party argument boils down to “this was a man in law enforcement and our law enforcement officials can’t be leaking confidential information on cases under investigation to the press”, and this has a lot of appeal. How often has the court of public opinion decided the verdict of a case before the court of law ever has a chance to review the evidence? A factually incorrect leak (or even a correct one out of context) can ruin reputations and make finding an impartial jury almost impossible.

Democrats, on the other hand, point out that the investigation was going on behind closed doors, and within sections of the government fairly closely under Presidential control. As we’re seeing more and more these days, the Justice Department doesn’t investigate anything that a unified President and Congress don’t want them to investigate. Would justice truly have been served if Mr. Felt had held his tongue, or would the investigation have been swept under the rug, and one of the most demonstratively corrupt administrations of our time left in power?

It’s a difficult choice, and I really don’t know the right answer. I think the morally right answer depends on a case-by-case basis, but how do you regulate that? How, if something is left on the honor system, do we prevent misuse?

One test is whether the leak is in the public interest. Leaking details of a conspiracy against the public are absolutely praiseworthy, while leaking the name of covert, undercover operatives is treasonous (I still don’t understand why Robert Novak is still a free man). But where is the line drawn? If one has the name of a covert operative, under deep cover but also engaged in a conspiracy to mislead the public, is it positive or negative to report that? And when is a conspiracy of secrecy a good thing and when is it bad? There are good reasons for the Top Secret rating on some government documents, but that rating can also be misused to deny access to information the public has a right to.

And is Linda Tripp a hero or a criminal? She illegally taped a phone conversation and then released the results, but it related to a possible crime being committed. When is the information so important to get released that the moral imperative overrides the legal requirement that one keep secrets to which one is privy?

It must be much easier to live in the fringe world of the extreme Left or Right wing and see the world in black and white. Here in the center, it’s a study in grayscale, and while I’m inclined to say “Deep Throat” did a good thing for this country, I’m not as certain that it’s safe to operate on the principal of ends justifying means.

(By the way, another aspect of this debate is the motives of Mr. Felt, whom some accuse of bitterness at having been passed over for the #1 spot in the FBI and other such accusations. Having no information about this, I’ll skip that part of the discussion for today.)

Copyright © June 1, 2005 by Liam Johnson. http://www.liamjohnson.net