by JAMES TARANTO
Wednesday, June 1, 2005 3:27 P.M. EDT

Deep Thoughts
First "Star Wars," now "All the President's Men": This seems to be the year for wrapping up stories that began in the 1970s. We won't spoil the former by revealing the relationship between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, but we're guessing our readers by now know how "ATPM" ends: It turns out that Hal Holbrook plays Mark Felt, the No. 2 man at the FBI.

This was revealed yesterday by Vanity Fair magazine, whose July issue features an article (PDF here) by John D. O'Connor, a California lawyer, who reveals that Felt, who may or may not be his client (the article is vague on this point), is "Deep Throat." Yesterday afternoon the Washington Post reported that its own Bob Woodward, half of the paper's Watergate reporting team, confirms the report.

O'Connor unsurprisingly paints an entirely favorable picture of Felt, whereas the Post suggests his motives were not altogether heroic:

In an article being prepared for tomorrow's Washington Post, Woodward will detail the "accident of history" that connected a young reporter fresh from the suburbs to a man whom many FBI agents considered the best choice to succeed the legendary J. Edgar Hoover as director of the bureau. . . . On May 15, 1972, presidential candidate George Wallace was shot and severely wounded by Arthur H. Bremer, in a parking lot in Laurel [Md.]. . . .

By coincidence, the Bremer case came two weeks after the death of Hoover, an epochal moment for the FBI, which had never been led by anyone else. Felt wanted the job, he later wrote. He also wanted his beloved bureau to maintain its independence. And so his motivations were complex when Woodward called a month later seeking clues to the strange case of a burglary at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex. . . .

Wounded that he was passed over for the top job, furious at Nixon's choice of an outsider, Assistant Attorney General L. Patrick Gray III, as acting FBI director, and determined that the White House not be allowed to steer and stall the bureau's Watergate investigation, Mark Felt slipped into the role that would forever alter his life.

Of course one needn't have pure motives to do the right thing, and history seems likely to give Felt credit for his role in the downfall of a corrupt administration. And although others had fingered Felt as "Deep Throat" before (including, as The American Spectator's George Neumayr amusingly notes, a high school student who once went to summer camp with Carl Bernstein's son), the revelation nonetheless has the feel of something unexpected.

President Nixon's fall, after all, was a triumph for liberal Democrats and muckraking journalists--a triumph neither group has managed to equal since. To say the least, a protégé of J. Edgar Hoover makes an unlikely hero in this tale.

Yet consider what has happened in the years since Watergate. The Democratic Party suffered a series of electoral defeats and today is arguably in its weakest position since before the New Deal. During the same period, the press has seen a steady erosion in its public esteem.

This is in part because both the Democrats and the press learned the "lessons of Watergate" too well. The press is constantly seeking the next scandal, and the Democrats and the liberal left have taken to portraying policy disagreements as criminal coverups--the impulse behind both the Iran-contra scandal and the Valerie Plame kerfuffle. As if to underscore the futility of it all, yesterday, hours before the Felt revelation, the Boston Globe published an op-ed by Ralph Nader and some other guy arguing that President Bush should be impeached for liberating Iraq.

Felt himself turns out to have been both a hero of an earlier war on terrorism and a victim of the criminalization of policy differences. During the Carter administration, as O'Connor notes, Felt, who by then had left the FBI, "was indicted on charges of having authorized illegal F.B.I. break-ins earlier in the decade, in which agents without warrants entered the residences of associates and family members of suspected bombers believed to be involved with the Weather Underground." He was convicted in 1980. "Then, in a stroke of good fortune while his case was on appeal, Ronald Reagan was elected president." On April 15, 1981, Reagan granted Felt a full pardon.

Little wonder, then, that Felt, who had been a registered Democrat, "turned Republican during the Reagan years," as O'Connor notes. In this respect he was far from alone--and by helping to force the resignation of a Republican president, he might have helped set the stage for a Republican ascendancy.

What Ever Happened to Traditional Family Values?
"Family, Neighbors Praise 'Deep Throat' "--headline, Associated Press, May 31

Bulldog Veterans for Voinovich
"Yale classmates of [John] Bolton's said Tuesday he is unfit for the job" of U.N. ambassador, the Associated Press reports:

Yale classmates of Bolton's wrote to senators to oppose the nomination.

The 76 signers include cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who lampooned Bolton in his "Doonesbury" strip in May. Others were fellow members of the Class of 1970 who participated in a 35th reunion over the Memorial Day weekend.

"We are embarrassed and ashamed that the Bush administration has nominated someone so manifestly unsuited to represent our country at the United Nations," the Yale classmates wrote.

"As his classmates, we do not believe that Mr. Bolton has exhibited the values of civility, light and truth which our shared institution represents."

This is quite a contrast with the hostile coverage the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth got--especially considering that the man they were criticizing was portraying himself as some kind of war hero, whereas Bolton has never, so far as we know, made a big deal of his achievements at Yale.

John Kerry and the Parable of the Talents
Evelyn Wood may owe John Kerry* a refund--or maybe KERRY LIED!!!! when, as we noted yesterday, he made this statement:

I went back and reread the whole New Testament the other day. Nowhere in the three-year ministry of Jesus Christ did I find a suggestion at all, ever, anywhere, in any way whatsoever, that you ought to take the money from the poor, the opportunities from the poor and give them to the rich people.

We've never read the whole New Testament, but many of our readers have, and they called our attention to several passages that contradict Kerry, most notably the Parable of the Talents, which appears in Matthew 25:14-30 (a "talent" was a measure of both weight and money, analogous to the British pound):

"Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.

"After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.'

"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'

"The man with the two talents also came. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.'

"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'

"Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.'

"His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

" 'Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' . . ."

Another version of this parable appears in Luke 19:11-27. Also relevant is the story of Jesus' anointing at Bethany (John 12:1-8):

Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages." He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

"Leave her alone," Jesus replied. "It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me."

Another version of this story is in Matthew 26:7-12.

The Associated Press dispatch in which we found the original Kerry quote also includes this one:

"The fact is, 10 million more Americans voted for our idea of what we wanted to do than voted for Bill Clinton in 1996 when he was the sitting president of the United States," Kerry said. "The fact is, a million people volunteered. The fact is, across America we created an energy."

"We created an energy"? But the first law of thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. So much for the Democrats' claim to be the party of science.

* The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam for 120 days and promised 122 days ago to release his military records.

The Greedy Hand
GovExec.com reports that the Internal Revenue Service plans to step up tax enforcement efforts:

IRS officials face budget constraints on the service side if Congress grants President Bush's fiscal 2006 request. The White House proposal calls for a 1 percent decrease in spending on customer service, along with an 8 percent increase in money devoted to enforcement of tax laws.

"While we continue to rebuild our enforcement program in these difficult budgetary times, we must make some hard choices to be able to provide the best possible service at the lowest possible cost," said IRS Commissioner Mark Everson in a statement. Noncompliance costs the government more than $25 trillion in revenues a year, he said, and enforcement has "dropped to unacceptable levels."

Twenty-five trillion dollars a year? According to the CIA World Factbook, the entire U.S. gross domestic product for 2004 is estimated at a paltry $11.75 trillion.

The Origins of 'Fake but Accurate'
A Dallas Morning News report on the anti-Semitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" includes this interesting bit:

Even some Muslim leaders publicly acknowledge that The Protocols is a fake. But the truth is that many fans of the book's message simply don't care whether it's an actual record of an actual meeting.

Hitler addressed that issue more than 60 years ago. Even if untrue, The Protocols is real, he wrote:

"The important thing is that with positively terrifying certainty they reveal the nature and activity of the Jewish people and expose their inner contexts as well as their ultimate final aims."

Untrue but real? Why does that sound familiar?

Senate Has Bats in Belfry
"House Infested With 20,000 Bees"--headline, Associated Press, May 31

What Would 1-Year-Olds Eat Without Experts?
From an advice column in Pregnancy & Baby:

Your question:
What types of food could you serve for a one-year-old's birthday party?

The expert answers:
What to serve at a child's birthday party depends on the timing of the party. If you're having your event around lunch time, serving lunch would be appropriate but not necessary.

What Would We Do Without Police?
"Man's Shooting Death Was Homicide, Police Say"--headline, Indianapolis Star, June 1

What Would We Do Without Studies?
"Studies: Cynicism Starts Young and Sarcasm Is Complex"--headline, ABCNews.com, June 1

You Don't Say
"Rain Increases Flood Woes"--headline, Deseret News (Salt Lake City), May 31

Summer Travel Delayed Till Winter

"Expect Travel Delays This Summer"--headline, Los Angeles Daily News, May 27

"Airbus Superjumbo Six Months Late"--headline, Times (London), June 1

Well, the Planet Is Named After the Roman God of War
"Violence Mars Rock's Message"--headline, Trentonian, June 1

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
The first man to walk on the moon is threatening to sue his ex-barber, the Associated Press reports from Cincinnati:

Neil Armstrong learned that [barbershop] owner Marx Sizemore picked up some of the former astronaut's hair from the floor of his shop and sold it for $3,000. . . .

The letter [from Armstrong's lawyer] threatens legal action if Sizemore does not return the hair or contribute his $3,000 profit to a charity of Armstrong's choosing. The letter contends that the sale violates an Ohio law designed to protect the rights of famous people. It also asks Sizemore to pay Armstrong's legal expenses.

"I'm basically stuck between a rock and a hard place," said Sizemore, 36, who spent the $3,000 mostly on bills. "I told the lawyer I'm not going to pay him. The ball's in his court. If he doesn't act on it, I'm not going to act on it. If it dies out, I'll be happy." . . .

Sizemore scooped up Armstrong's hair from his shop about 25 miles northeast of Cincinnati and sold it in May 2004, he said. . . . Sizemore said he sold the hair to an agent for John Reznikoff, a Westport, Conn., collector listed by Guinness World Records as having the largest collection of hair from historical celebrities. The collection, insured for $1 million, includes hair from Abraham Lincoln, Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein, Napoleon and others.

As Armstrong might have said, that's one small snip for man . . .

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