June 03, 2005

Deep Throat and the Reminants of Watergate

As I'm sure we've all seen by this point, "Deep Throat" was in fact the #2 guy at the FBI. This is interesting, but Deep Throat is really just academic to politics at this point. This hasn't stopped various ex-Nixon adminstration people from bitching about what a bad person he is. I don't have web cites, but both Colson and Liddy (and I think I caught Buchanan, as well) have been cited complianing about the lack of honor and integrity of this paragon of the FBI in going outside the official channels to leak information to the Washington Post.

I'll grant that enough dirt has been thrown up at this point to make Deep Throat's actions perhaps less than pure as the driven snow (specifically, he had been passed up to become #1 at the FBI, after Hoover left, and his actions might reflect someone upset at this personal and professional slight, not the altruistic actions of a patriotic individual), but that's not what I'm annoyed at. Deep Throat's motives we can debate; that doesn't change that Nixon participated (and planned) an action that was illegal, then used his office to try to cover up this fact.

In other words, no one - absolutely no one - can defend Nixon. I don't like the present Bush. I freely admit that, and am prepared to back up my statements with arguments. But Bush, at least, hasn't (to my knowledge) actually committed illegal acts and used his office to avoid punishment for them. He has made awful policy choices, but they aren't illlegal. Nixon, on the other hand, made decent policy choices, but did illegal things. There really isn't a comparison, and any of the ex-Nixon people who are complaining about Deep Throat should be bitch-slapped like the assholes they are. Deep Throat may have had less-than-perfect motives for his actions (or, they may have been perfectly patriotic and democratic), but the result of his actions removed a criminal from the Oval Office. One can simply not complain about that.

It's actions like this that make me continue to wonder what the modern Republican Party actually believes as an ideology.

Posted by baltar at June 3, 2005 01:01 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics


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