Deep Throat: A lesson in courage or a criminal?

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"Deep Throat" revealed himself recently, as he is 91 years old now and was the #2 person at the FBI back during Watergate. Some in the Administration have called him a criminal or, worse, a traitor, others not in the Administration have called him a hero. I wouldn't call him either. I believe he was in a situation, not unlike many of us have faced in our lives, where we see something wrong and, at the very least, unethical, and we are faced with what if anything to do about it. In my 25 plus years as a consultant, I saw business leaders faced with similar choices of ethics go through their own decision making processes about what to do. When someone like myself was there speaking as a voice for doing the "right" thing, they did. But I often wondered if I wasn't there or someone else wasn't there to speak for ethical behavior, what choices would they have made. Mr. Felt chose a difficult path. He had noone to raise the issue to in the Administration as his bosses and others at the highest level were in on the coverup of the crime. He did the right thing in my view, as I would hope I would have, given the same situation, by involving the media. I call Mr. Felt a patriot for democracy, which requires checks and balances. When there doesn't appear like anyone is providing those checks and balances, it is up to all of us to have the courage to fill that role ourselves. I have been fortuante to be around many colleagues that did just that in my years working for IBM. Just ordinary people who contributed in their own way to have the courage to see some things within a large monolith and spoke out. Maybe not on such a grand scale as did Mr. Felt, but it is through lesser battles that we gain the courage to do the "right" thing in grander situations. I would be willing to bet, Mr. Felt, over his carrer as an FBI official, had many small trials as to what path to take, courage to do what's right or allow fear to immobilze him from doing anything. Many break rules to bring the spotlight on issues and individuals. Thank God they do. And thank you, Mr. Felt, for having the courage of revealing you were Deep Throat, so late in your life. You certainly didn't have to, as your secret had been kept by Bob Woodward et al for all these years. And thank you Bob Woodward et al for doing the "right thing" in bringing us the Watergate story. This was the media's finest hour. Hopefully many journalists will take some good lessons from this.