Frank Rich

Why did the press covered Deep Throat the way they did without looking at Watergate? When it turns out most of Americans don't really understand what Watergate was really about. Most Americans believe it really was something... "all politicians do and Nixon just got caught and a 3rd rate burglary" and our press corps left these Americans blissfully in the dark. Why? Read the ever eloquent Rich....

Not without reason. Had the scandal been vividly resuscitated as the long national nightmare it actually was, it would dampen all the Felt fun by casting harsh light on our own present nightmare. "The fundamental right of Americans, through our free press, to penetrate and criticize the workings of our government is under attack as never before" was how the former Nixon speech writer William Safire put it on this page almost nine months ago. The current administration, a second-term imperial presidency that outstrips Nixon's in hubris by the day, leads the attack, trying to intimidate and snuff out any Woodwards or Bernsteins that might challenge it, any media proprietor like Katharine Graham or editor like Ben Bradlee who might support them and any anonymous source like Deep Throat who might enable them to find what Carl Bernstein calls "the best obtainable version of the truth."