Feltfest Continues

Here's a roundup of the Big Time MSM's ongoing Fun With Felt, the Watergate Redux story:

The WashPost, as you'd expect, covered it like the Second Coming. Six stories and four video clips are fanned across the top of the WaPo Web site, leading with How Mark Felt Became 'Deep Throat.' The WaPo story on ethics, At the FBI, Reflections on Felt and Loyalty, does not start with the guys who think Felt's an unethical schmuck like the LATimes story below did. Instead:

But for the most part, many current and former agents said in interviews yesterday, Felt is viewed as a reluctant hero who was seeking to preserve the integrity of a criminal investigation that was under political attack from the Nixon White House and its allies.

Selective interviewing, do doubt. Besides, what else would you tell Woodstein's newspaper? In Follow the Money (nice title to Watergate Geeks), it's the story I covered yesterday but now with a number attached: An estimated $1 million for the book rights. The Felt kids must be so happy they sold out Daddy!

The NYTimes, sharing a town with the publishing industry, also covered the business angle: In the Prelude to Publication, Intregue Worthy of Deep Throat -- the business negotiations behind the deal. "This was always about the money, and they were very up front with me," says one editor. Little time for hero worship or Watergate ruminations in this one, although there's always time to kneel at the alter of Woodward, the media god.

The LATimes led with Disgust and Admiration at FBI. The story has plenty of quotes from agents who think Felt is a turncoat driven by personal gain, but finds enough agents to blast Nixon and the White House years and praise Felt. And lest we forget that the FBI has an important role in enforcing the MSM-hated Patriot Act, the LAT gets in a dig at the bureau:

But others said that W. Mark Felt, then the FBI's No. 2 man, did what he had to do to get the story out. That's a sentiment that has permeated the bureau throughout its history and continues to this day — sometimes for ignoble purposes.

I didn't read them all in detail, but one thing is clear: MSM is not focusing on the story of Felt's own break-in for surveillance purposes a few years after Watergate. They don't want to tarnish a hero of journalism by dwelling on the fact that Felt was guilty of exactly the same crime as the Watergate burglers.