So we know who "Deep Throat" is... now what???

Yesterday it was disclosed that W Mark Felt, the number two man at the FBI in the Nixon years, was the anonymous source known as "Deep Throat," whose leads aided two young reporters from The Washington Post write the story that brought down a presidency. And it didn't look too shabby on their resumés either.

Felt was in charge of the investigation of the break-in at the Watergate hotel. It was just after the death of J Edgar Hoover, and the Bureau was in turmoil. So who does Nixon put in as Director to ensure continuity? One of his own hacks. On top of that, the Bureau's hands were being tied. Now civil servants take an oath, not to a President or a government, but to the Constitution. That goes double for Federal law enforcement. So this was more than a guy like Felt could handle. So he... handled it. The rest is history.

Not to mention the latest issue of Vanity Fair.

It was put in the news cycle late yesterday afternoon, and most of big celebrity bloggers at St Blogs have yet to comment as this is posted. But most of them are too young to remember squat, so here's what they won't tell you.

About the time of Nixon's resignation, the son of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR Jr, admitted that his own father did things worse than Nixon ever imagined. Then there was a book that came out in 1977 entitled It Didn't Start With Watergate by Victor Lasky. From its pages, you will discover:

1. LBJ's wiretapping of Barry Goldwater in the 1964 campaign - and Martin Luther King, too (wasn't this what got Nixon in trouble?)

2. LBJ's stolen Texas election with help from later Texas Governor John Connally (yes, the same one shot when JFK was killed) that propelled him to power.

3. The Kennedy's misuse of the IRS against opponents, the FBI against King, and the patriotism issue against Hubert Humphrey (proof that it isn't just the Swift Boat vets that do it)

4. The fact that McGovern was dead in the water even without Watergate. He mentions the Eagleton affair and Humphrey's notion that McGovern had his own dirty baggage as far as politics went.

(items from a review at Amazon.com)

And don't even get me started on President Clinton, who lied outright to a grand jury, and on national television. We all stood there and watched. Knowing full well what a crook he was, we re-elected him. After all, he played the saxophone on MTV, and told the kids he didn't inhale.

Nixon, on the other hand, was a geek. His hair wasn't as nice as Jack Kennedy's, and his picture was taken walking the beach in his wing-tipped shoes, and playing "Home on the Range" on the piano. Now, we simply can't have such a creepy, icky guy as our President, can we?

So, whatever questions are finally answered by yesterday's disclosure, the big one won't be: Was it his own treachery that brought down the Nixon presidency, or a victory of style over substance?

Discuss.