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June 2, 2005 It’s about Faith and Doubt. I say that the story of Mark Felt, aka Deep Throat, is a story of faith. It’s about believing and acting, even if you can’t prove your beliefs. In that, Mark Felt is neither a hero nor coward. He’s just normal. We all have to commit to some beliefs, even those we can’t prove, and act on them. That’s what faith is. Let’s take the story at face value. Felt was the number two man at the FBI. The number one man was a political appointee. Felt thought the White House was corrupt, and would obstruct the Watergate investigation. Under the practical circumstances, Felt was in no official position to protect the investigation. But a reporter gave him a chance to unofficially keep the story alive, so he consented to leak details to the press. Some take that as cowardice, others as heroism. Everyone agrees that Watergate was an obstruction of justice, but the context is important. At the time, Nixon was maneuvering to end the Vietnam war, open China, and keep Moscow at bay. The Middle East was an even bigger powder keg then than it is now. All the while, Nixon was battling his political opponents at home, and he was winning. Nixon was on his way to a huge electoral victory in 1972, and Nixon’s opponents had no leverage against him. His opponents exploited the Watergate scandal, not because they really cared about the break-in and cover-up itself, but simply because they had not other way to bring Nixon down. To Nixon’s followers, the opponents were perfectly willing to throw away China, endanger Israel, encourage Moscow, and lose the war in Indochina, all for the sake of winning a petty, narrow political victory. Sure, Watergate was an obstruction, but it was a small matter blown disingenuously out of proportion. Obviously, how you feel about Deep Throat depends entirely on how you feel about Watergate. Was it a minor matter blown way out of proportion, or was it an important crime? Since Watergate, we’ve been through Iran-Contra and Monicagate, both of which displayed the same behavior, but neither brought down the president. Plenty of critics howl that Mark Felt was a coward, because if he truly believed there was a real crime involved, he should have resigned and gone public, or at least to the U.S. Attorney. Instead, he chose to keep his prestigious and powerful job, and feed reporters with his suspicions. How you feel about that depends entirely on what you believe about Watergate. Before we talk about faith, we ought to note two important points to this case. An office is an office is an office. The power of government is the power of the people as a whole. We prudently divide that awesome power into distinct roles, to prevent individuals from using the power to indulge their personal whims. If you hold office, not only must you fulfill your own responsibility, you must also stay away from other officials as they fulfill their responsibility. The Nixon White House thought that the Watergate investigation was politically motivated; but no matter what their opinion was, they had no authority to intervene. It doesn’t matter if they believed that the investigators were biased; they had no right to intervene. Ironically, though, the same rule applies to Mark Felt. It doesn’t matter whether he thought the White House (or his FBI boss) was biased; he had no right to sidestep the restrictions and leak information to the press. If Nixon was wrong, so was Deep Throat. You can’t indict one without the other. Defenders may argue that Felt deserved a pass because he was trying to uncover a crime, whereas Nixon was trying to keep it hidden. But the counter argument is that Felt was keeping an insignificant matter alive, whereas Nixon was trying to prevent it from interfering with matters that are more important. Your answer depends entirely on how you view Watergate. The press has freedom, but not license. A government official can’t act against someone until he has proof. You can’t arrest someone without a warrant, which means that you’ve gone to a judge and proved something. Just as important, government officials can’t publicize their suspicions. You might seriously consider someone a suspect in a crime, but a government official has strict rules about what he can say. It’s different with reporters, however. Reporters don’t have to prove anything before they publish. They can write much more freely than any government official can. Naturally, government officials envy the press’s freedom. Reporters, of course, need government officials to disclose official information. To no one’s surprise, reporters and officials form relationships. Taken literally, a reporter’s source is nothing more than a government official who’s trying to skirt the rules. But because the press is valuable as a social device to keep government from abusing power, we allow the press more leeway. Still, even if we allow the press more freedom, it’s not open season. The press can’t create accusations out of thin air, or fuel speculation without just cause. We have to hold the press accountable. We place restrictions on government officials for good reason, and those same reasons apply to the press. The price of the press’s freedom is truth. We’ll allow the press greater freedom than government officials, but only if they get the story right. Woodward and Bernstein only survived because they got the story right. You can argue about their political biases all you want, but they got the facts straight. That’s what makes them different from the Dan Rather and Newsweek fiascos; those buffoons lost their credibility because they blew the facts. Now, of course, you can argue that Watergate was a small matter blown way out of proportion, but you can’t blame the reporters for that. They did their job, appropriately. In the end, Mark Felt’s story is simply about faith. On this website, some have tried to define faith as believing for no reason. That’s a classic straw man definition, juvenile at best. Their only intent is to disparage religion, for what motive, I neither know nor care. Contrary to what they define, however, faith is not belief without reason; it’s believing without acceptable proof. Reason and proof are not the same, despite what our culture (incorrectly) teaches. We live in a culture that prides itself on science and the scientific method; the intellectual dictum is to withhold belief until you can prove it publicly. That discipline serves well in the lab, in the courtroom, and even in the classroom. But in real life, that’s simply unworkable. Look at Mark Felt’s case. Ignore, for a moment, any mixed motives he may have had. Instead, focus on the fact that he was a government official. He had strong suspicions that the Nixon White House was corrupt, but he had no official way to act on his suspicions. He was in the position that so many people are: he had suspicions, even beliefs, but he was in no position to prove them. He had belief, but he had no proof. Or, more to the point, he knew that his proof wouldn’t stand up in a court of law. Mark Felt’s case comes down to a simple example of a common human condition: how do you handle beliefs that you cannot prove? Let’s face it. Humans live in doubt. Absolutists of science demand that we must never accept doubt. They demand that unless you can prove something independently, you must not believe. Most of us, however, live with doubt all the time. That’s part of being human. With religion, believers already know that nonbelievers won’t accept their reasons for faith. Nonbelievers demand a scientific proof grounded in something empirical, which, of course, can’t ever apply to a non-physical God. The game is rigged, so to speak, and believers shouldn’t play it. Well, how should a believer proceed? Most believers hold to their beliefs with an open mind. We'll change if there's proof. However, it's not enough to claim that we have no publicly admissible evidence. The absence of proof is not disproof. Therefore, we hold onto our faith, even if we can't prove it. Look at Deep Throat. He had beliefs, but he was in no practical position to prove anything. So what did he do? I think he did what most of us do everyday: we hold to our beliefs despite doubt. Why didn’t he go to official channels? Probably because he had a natural assumption that if the White House had blocked one official channel, they had ways to block others. If the White House could stop an FBI investigation, they could probably stop a U.S. Attorney, or a congressional probe. What was the one place the White House probably couldn’t stop? The press. I also think it’s important here to remember that the Mark Felt didn’t reach out to the press. Woodward came to him, begging for help. Deep Throat didn’t launch the reporting. But when presented with a way to protect the investigation, I’d guess that Mark Felt did the best he could under the circumstances. To be blunt, Mark Felt acted on his beliefs, despite his inability to prove them. In that, I say that he was a man of faith. Most of us know exactly how that feels. ------------ About the author: KC Mulville holds graduate degrees in philosophy, and is an ex-Jesuit. Now a husband and father of four, he is a programmer for databases and for the web. Email KC Mulville: kcmulville@hotmail.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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