No More Secrets - Deep Throat Revealed

Well, there's no more mystery in the world - Deep Throat has been revealed.

Why now?

All you have to do is read the article to figure it out:

"Breaking a silence of 30 years, former FBI official W. Mark Felt stepped forward Tuesday as Deep Throat, the secret Washington Post source that helped bring down President Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Within hours, the paper ratified his claim..."

"...Felt, who lives in Santa Rosa, Calif., is said to be in poor mental and physical health because of a stroke. His family did not immediately make him available for comment, asking the news media to respect his privacy "in view of his age and health...."

"...According to the article, Felt once told his son, Mark Jr., that he did not believe being Deep Throat "was anything to be proud of. ... You (should) not leak information to anyone."

His family members thought otherwise, and persuaded him to talk about his role in the Watergate scandal, saying he deserves to receive accolades before his death. His daughter, Joan, argued that he could "make enough money to pay some bills, like the debt I've run up for the children's education"..."

There it is! Grandpa had a stroke, the kids need money, so they're exploiting his secret to pay the bills.

"...A grandson, Nick Jones, read a statement. "The family believes that my grandfather, Mark Felt Sr., is a great American hero who went well above and beyond the call of duty at much risk to himself to save his country from a horrible injustice," it said. "We all sincerely hope the country will see him this way as well."..."

Well, Nick, I think that about half of the country, the blue half, will see it this way. I think the other half will see you and your family as opportunists who don't care about dragging Nixon's name through the mud again as long as you can make a buck.

MorOn.Org Stopped the Nuclear Option

MoveOn.Org is claiming victory in the judicial showdown in the Senate. Here's excerpts of the email I received from the group today:

"President Bush, Bill Frist and the radical right-wing of the Republican Party have failed in their attempt to seize absolute power over the courts. Together, we've stopped the "nuclear option" — for now."

"Last night's resolution was a real victory, but it came at a heavy price. Three of the nominees the Democrats agreed not to filibuster, Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, and William Pryor, will now head to confirmation votes in the Senate where they may well be approved. Their record of corporate bias and outright hostility to the basic rights of ordinary Americans poses a serious threat that we will have to contend with for years to come."

Remember this last section about these 3 nominees. I suspect that in the coming months, other nominees, even a Supreme Court nominee, will be threatened with the filibuster. When this happened, the left will have to make an excuse for why they are filibustering the new nominees when they let these 3 through. I'm thinking that at that future point in time, these 3 will be less extreme than the new nominees.

Newsweek's Bloody Hands

The big news story this morning is Newsweek's admission that their story about Koran burning in Cuba might not have been accurate. I'm sure that's comforting to the families of the 15 people who were killed in Afghanistan as a result of the story.

Newsweek stated, "opponents of the Afghan government including remnants of the Taliban had used its report to fan unrest in the country, said it was not contemplating disciplinary action against staff."

"'This was reported very carefully, with great sensitivity and concern, and we'll continue to report on it,' said Newsweek Managing Editor Jon Meacham. 'We have tried to be transparent about exactly what happened, and we leave it to the readers to judge us.'"

Please judge them. If you have a subscription to Newsweek, cancel it. If you go to the doctor's office and there is a copy of Newsweek on the table, take it and throw it in the trash.

This sort of irresponsible behavior is a threat to journalism everywhere in that as Americans learn to trust the media even less, there will come a time when they ignore a truly important story.

CBS Is Doing It Again

Apparently CBS did some selective editing to make it seem like Ken Starr was attacking the Republican attempt to break the filibuster. Power Line has the link to the Rush Limbaugh story in which Starr states that he was talking about the Democrat attempt to block the judges based on ideology. CBS didn't include that part in the interview. They also won't give Ken Starr a copy of the tape.

Rolling Stones Touring (Again)

At what point in a rock star's life does he or she ask: Am I too old to be a rock star?

Mick Jagger is 62 years old! My dad is younger than that.

I noticed that the tour is being sponsored by Ameriquest mortgage company. I think that some more appropriate sponsors would include: Polident, Metamucil, and Depends.

The Mayor and The Cop Killer

Hugh asks the question: "Can you survive as a mayor of a major city when your restaurant not only employs illegals, but employs an illegal who assassinates a uniformed police officer?"

I believe the answer will be yes. There's been no press on the connection because the focus has been on finding the killer, which is where it should be. But even after the inevitable capture, the Denver dailies are unlikely to pursue the mayor's office.

The argument will be that since the mayor has nothing to do with the day-to-day operations, how could he be expected to know that an illegal alien was working at one of his restaurants (setting aside the fact that many restaurants employ illegals)?

Which leads to the question: How accountable should an owner be for the conduct of the employees?

UPDATE: Clay Calhoun has more on this story. There's also a particularly good comment about how Donald Rumsfeld has been beaten up for Abu Graib, while occupying the same position of authority as Hickenlooper.

Blogging Has Been Light

I know I haven't been blogging like I should. It's not like there isn't anything going on either. There's the filibuster, Bolton, DeLay, and lots of other material. But it's all still in the brewing stages. Nothing explosive or monumental.

Fortunately, Lileks has given me reason not to despair over my lack of blogging in today's Bleat: "Dole out crap in large amounts all day and you don’t guarantee traffic; eventually people will tire of poking through the heap with a stick looking for diamonds."

Reducing the Deficit

Maybe things are getting better:

"After three years of rising federal budget deficits, a surge of April tax receipts brought unexpected good news to fiscal policymakers -- the tide of government red ink appears to be receding.

The Treasury Department this week reported there would be a $54 billion swing from projected deficit to surplus in the April-to-June quarter, after an unanticipated gush of tax payments poured into the Treasury before the April 15 deadline. That prompted private forecasters to lower their deficit projections for the fiscal year that ends in September."

Pray for Jim

Jim from Thinking Right is in intensive care. Please pray for him.

Prediction Update

In this post, I predicted a few things. Here's an update to a couple of them:

1. Jim Spencer spends another column on the Denver 3. In fairness he did write about the Denver Filter Queen going out of business, but 3 of his last 4 columns have been about the 2 subjects I predicted.

2. Tom DeLay continues to be the focus of attacks, but, as predicted, he's going to take a few people down with him. This morning, it's 2 DEMOCRAT congressmen who get caught up in the lobbyist-paid trip trap. Hugh's post today goes into this subject with a wise suggestion:

"Perhaps some old media outlet with staff could just publish a list of every sitting congressman, all the trips they have taken over the past ten years and their funding source, so we could get an idea of what Congressional travel practices look like. But of course that would provide context and drain the DeLay hunt of its drama, so don't look for such serious reporting anytime soon."