Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Tuesday in Hot and Humid D.C.

Hot and steamy this morning in D.C. -- welcome to the Chesapeake Bay summer! After last evening's thunderstorms, streams and rivers swollen sickly yellow-brown as I traveled down by MARC train from Baltimore. Today promises to be another hectic day as I wrestle to get in the illustrations for Gynecologic Oncology unit. Stay tuned.

Woodward and Bernstein were totally blindsided I think by the sudden announcement that Mark Felt was "Deep Throat" something that Ben Bradlee and the Post first denied when the Felt family made the revelation in connection with the upcoming Vanity Fair article on Felt. Luckily, Woodward had a book in hand on the topic, having learned earlier that Felt was ailing after a recent stroke. Looks to be another blockbuster for Woodward. It appears to me that the remaining loose end and question is whether Felt is really lucid enough to know what is going on. His daughter and grandson made the announcement about him being "Deep Throat" but how much did he really know about it?

Bobbleheads

"Bob, the decision to invade was not lightly made,"
George W. confesses to Woodward. "I felt certain I had
the votes." Bob sees Congress as bobbleheads. He nods.

"I hold the lives of all our men and women in my heart."
Bob envisions a burned-out humvee as insurgents brandish
rocket launchers, ready to die for Allah. "I knew I had

the blessing of the man upstairs." Bob sees God's angels
nodding as bobbleheads. George W.'s scottie humps
Bob's leg. "Guess it's time for walkies round the ranch."

Christopher T. George

1 comment:

Christopher T. George said...

Again, I have to wonder how much Mark Felt is powering the revelation that he was "Deep Throat" and how much comes from his family. If Felt actually is ga ga or close to it (we all know of old people who pass a point of being truly with it), is he really after money as I now note that William F. Buckley asserts in

"Foul Felt. Now he wants some money for it."
http://www.nationalreview.com/buckley/buckley.asp

I like this part. Bob Woodward first met Felt while they were both waiting to be seen in the White House when the future reporter was a U.S. Navy lieutenant--

There they both were, waiting, in the West Wing of the White House, Woodward to deliver a message from the Chief of Naval Operations, the Assistant Director of the FBI on a mission of his own. "I could tell he was watching the situation very carefully. There was nothing overbearing in his attentiveness, but his eyes were darting about in a kind of gentlemanly surveillance. After several minutes I introduced myself. 'Lieutenant Bob Woodward,' I said, carefully appending a deferential 'sir.'

"'Mark Felt,' he said.”

Mark Antony, meeting Brutus, deserved no greater headline in history.


End of quote. Then Buckley has a chance to come across as the fellow full of virtue, in contrast to the despicable Felt, as he continues--

On January 5, 1973, Howard Hunt, an old friend and my sometime boss in the CIA, came to see me, accompanied by one of his daughters (my goddaughter, as it happened). He told me the appalling, inside story of Watergate, including the riveting news that one of the plumbers was ready and disposed to kill Jack Anderson, the journalist-commentator, if word came down to proceed to that lurid extreme.

I took what I thought appropriate measures. I do not believe Jack Anderson's life was actually imperiled, but meanwhile, in an adjacent theater, Mark Felt, posing as an incorruptible agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was advancing his own drama. And now he wants some money for it.


Buckley, though a conservative, might think about the honor of the American presidency and the importance of freedom of the press rather than scoring this cheap point.