Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 13:59:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: dicconf <dicconf at radix.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: The end of a Washington mystery
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Ted White wrote:

>> On Tue, 31 May 2005, Michael Walsh wrote:
>>
>>>> sfbookfan at yahoo.com 5/31/2005 11:48:42 AM >>>
>>>> I have the TV on and this story just broke.  An
>>>> article in Vanity Fair identifies Deep Throat as W.
>>>> Mark Felt.  I believe he was #2 at the F.B.I. during
>>>> the Nixon administration.  He's currently ill and
>>>> living in CA.  The writer of the article was
>>>> interviewed on ABC news by Charlie Gibson
>>>
>>> This: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8047258/ has "W. Mark Felt, who retired
>>> from the FBI after rising to its second most senior position, has
>>> identified himself as the 'Deep Throat' "
>>>
>>> Of course the more conspiratorially minded will claim he's actually
>>> covering up for someone else...
>>
>> But "Deep Throat" is an _anti_-government hero.  Now, if he'd been
>> claiming that he was secretly responsible for the collapse of the Berlin
>> Wall, you'd have heard the voices of protest immediately.
>
> What is fascinating is to hear the statements of Buchanan, Liddy, Coulson,
> et al, about what a "traitor" Felt was (to his president!).  To this day,
> they do not acknowledge that they and Nixon were the traitors.

To betray a trust is not to be a traitor in the Constitutional
definition, which is the only one that applies in American law.
("Treason to the United States shall consist only in levying war against
them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort...")
No doubt somebody will re-quote the rest of the definition, too, which
requires that conviction requires at least two witnesses or a confession
in open court.  Nixon's actions were as reprehensible as, say, Jane
Fonda's, but they did not amount to adhering to the enemy, much less
levying war.  And I don't think sending the Kremlin into gales of mocking
laughter can really be counted as "giving [the enemy] aid and comfort".

-- Dick Eney

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