Garment Weighs In

Once again I find myself in the weird position of agreeing with Republican warhorses on the Deep Throat issue. In today's Wall Street Journal, Leonard Garment, Nixon's lawyer, points out that while the press focused on the revelations leaked by FBI director wannabe Mark Felt, Judge John Sirica was threatening James McCord with a long sentence, which led directly to his "spilling the beans" to a federal grand jury. "In this drama, which led directly to the exposure of the Watergate cover-up, Deep Throat was a marginal player," Garment said.

But then he made this very important comment:

If Deep Throat was not critical to the unraveling of Watergate, then what was his importance? Perhaps it was to foster in American politics the idea that the central feature of our government is the secret knowledge held by those at the center of power, and that only through the bravery of whistleblowers like Deep Throat can the polity gain the keys to the secrets and the ability to reassert democratic control. This idea has had consequences since Watergate, many of them problematic.

I agree. It was the progressive movement of the early 20th century that fought long and hard to win the right for professional civil servants to carry out their jobs free from political pressure or the threat of losing their jobs if they didn't toe a preconceived line. This was especially critical at the nation moved toward greater regulation of business, which in those days when organized labor barely existed and non-profit pressure groups were non-existant largely controlled all three branches of government (shades of today!).

When those professionals -- including law enforcement professionals -- don't have the courage, ethics or integrity to stand up in public for what they know to be right because of fear of political retaliation, the foundations of our democracy are demonstrably weaker. The very fact that we have a whistleblower protection law speaks volumes about the post-Watergate environment. The fact that today it has become a useless tool speaks volumes about life in modern America.