It Felt Wrong

From The American Spectator:

One of the striking things about press coverage of the unmasking of Watergate's "Deep Throat" has been that, while there have been multiple suggestions of a real debate about whether Mark Felt's actions in revealing confidential FBI information to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post were admirable or not, there have been remarkably few spokesmen for the point of view that they were not. Pat Buchanan, it's true, unabashedly called Felt "a snake," but his was a lonely voice. In the Post itself, Dan Eggen wrote that the revelation "has come as a shock to many retired and current agents at the FBI, some of whom say they are discomfited" -- like most journalists who use this word, Eggen means "made uncomfortable" and not defeated, routed or balked in their purposes, which is its actual meaning -- "by a senior FBI executive leaking details of an investigation to the press. In some chat rooms frequented by retired FBI veterans, Felt is even being accused of betraying the bureau." But Eggen doesn't quote anybody who makes such an accusation, and those he does quote seem to be of the opinion of Paul V. Daly, a former agent who thought that Felt had acted "for a noble purpose" but that he himself was "not sure whether he approves of the methods."