Wednesday, June 01, 2005

I Felt for Felt

Am I the only one who saw the sad, pathetic old man Mark Felt emerge from his house yesterday and thought "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille"?

I admit this is an absolutely visceral reaction but seeing Felt smiling and waving and looking every bit as lost as Gloria Swanson in the climactic scene from "Sunset Blvd." I couldn't help sensing that this old man had been used by his family, pushed for perhaps publicity or financial reasons, to reveal in his weakened mental state what he had for three decades steadfastly kept secret when all his faculties were around him.

By all accounts -- even the most sympathetic rewriting of history I have come across since Felt's supposed admission -- the former number two man at the FBI believed the actions of "Deep Throat" were cowardly and wrong. His lost and hallucinatory smiling and waving for the cameras was totally incongruous with that of a man who had any clue that the gaggle of reporters was there not because it was time for his big close-up but rather because his family had betrayed him.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You were right on target. Mark Felt did have this dopey "Look maw, I'm on TV" look on his face. This sudden revealing of Deep Throat's identity stinks to high hell of somebody's book deal. I hear there's more than one - the authors' identities of which I'm quite content to keep secret here.
Yes, Felt's actions were wrong, even unethical (Pay attention Tom Delay), but it doesn't justify what Nixon did and after Felt goes back to his hole and this sad publicity stunt blows over, history will forever remember Nixon for his even sadder actions.

Anonymous said...

Need money -- Gotta pay for the daughters plastic surgery.

Makrothumeo said...

I keep trying to work up an emotion about this clown, but I can't...he's a putz.