The Associated Press surveyed the nation's daily newspapers, inquiring about the use of anonymous sources. About a quarter of the daily papers responded, with one quarter of those papers reporting that they don't use anonymous sources as a matter of policy.

When Vanity Fair revealed Mark Felt as Deep Throat, they also highlighted the drawbacks of anonymous sourcing. Withholding the names of individuals leveling accusations withholds information from the reader--information that often helps the reader to evaluate the credibility of a charge. "Top experts name FlynnFiles world's greatest website" takes on a radically different connotation when you learn that the "top experts" are my mother and brothers. Deep Throat takes on radically different connotations when we learn that he is Mark Felt.

Deep Throat had no ax to grind. Mark Felt did. Both Mark Felt and Bob Woodward acknowledged that Deep Throat felt passed over by Nixon for the spot of J. Edgar Hoover's successor at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Felt arrived in Washington as a partisan, working on Capitol Hill for Democrat officeholders. Felt exposed illegality in the Nixon administration while partaking in the very same illegality. Mark Felt was convicted in 1980 of authorizing illegal break-ins on the homes of friends and relatives of suspected members of the terrorist Weather Underground group during the Watergate period. If Deep Throat really was a patriot outraged at the powerful abusing their power, he would have ratted on himself too. And what's the second in command at the FBI doing leaking information from FBI files and a grand jury to the press? Apart from that being illegal, Felt could have (at great risk to his career) arrested the ne'er-do-wells himself or gone to Congress with information. But he didn't.

None of this negates the very real crimes of Nixon administration officials. It does cast Deep Throat in a less heroic light. Deep Throat is no longer a mythic figure cleaning out the dirty stables of Washington. Deep Throat is Mark Felt.

Felt is no hero. He behaved dishonorably in his leaking government documents, and he broke a vow. Life is tough, and he had a responsibility to go through channels with his information even if it meant jail time for himself.

However, you shouldn't confuse illegal break-ins to try to stop murderers with illegal break-ins to hurt your political enemies. Reagan certainly didn't with his pardon of Felt.

The Weather Underground certainly were despicable people, and terrorists, and criminals, but the only deaths they were responsible for at the time Felt ordered the break-ins were the deaths of three Weather Underground members who died while constructing a nail bomb. So, your "murderers" characterization is a stretch--even if it was not for lack of trying on their part. On top of this, you should note that the break-ins Felt ordered were on friends and family members of Weathermen and not Weathermen themselves. He had no warrant from a judge to partake in such activities, just his own sense of right and wrong. Also consider that there is no evidence that Nixon actually ordered the Watergate break-in (although he was certainly capable of ordering a break-in). Felt did authorize the black-bag jobs he got convicted for.

Dan
You've spelled it out about as far as you can, but still ...

A bona fide investigation of very dangerous people vs. covering up a political break-in and, maybe, authorizing the break-in. And you say I'm stretching, which I was.

I understand. The motivations behind both burglaries differed. One was to go after dangerous criminals, the other was to go after mere political enemies (although the book Silent Coup posits that the Watergate break-in was less a political than a personal thing engineered by John Dean). Having said that, being a friend or family member of a dangerous criminal doesn't make you a dangerous criminal--which is probably why Felt and co. skipped that part about getting a warrant before entering these people's homes. It's this aspect of the break-ins--lacking a warrant--that makes them criminal rather than "a bona fide investigation."

You all know who Deep Throat is right? Forrest Gump...remember he called hotel security.

Why don't you want people to read my article on FindLaw's Writ, Dan? Questions remain unanswered.

See: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20050603.html