In a fiery New York Times commentary, Frank Rich considers the coverage of the recent outing of Mark Felt as Deep Throat, noting for one thing that the oft-quoted remark “Follow the money” was never uttered by Deep Throat, at least not according to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein‘s All The President’s Men. It was a piece of fiction written by William Goldman for the movie version of the book. But “This confusion of Hollywood’s version of history with the genuine article would quickly prove symptomatic of the overall unreality of the Deep Throat coverage,” says Rich. “Was Mr. Felt a hero or a villain? Should he ‘follow the money’ into a book deal, and if so, how would a 91-year-old showing signs of dementia either write a book or schmooze about it with Larry King? How did Vanity Fair scoop The Post? How does Robert Redford feel about it all?” Meanwhile, Rich says, Watergate “is once again being covered up” — such as when one of the major perpetrators, Charles Colson, is quoted on NBC’s Today Show “condemning Mr. Felt for dishonoring ‘the confidence of the president of the United States.’ Never mind that Mr. Colson dishonored the law, proposed bombing the Brookings Institution and went to prison for his role in the break-in to steal the psychiatric records of The Times’s Deep Throat on Vietnam, Daniel Ellsberg. The ‘Today’ host, Matt Lauer, didn’t mention any of this — or even that his guest had done jail time.” But, Rich continues, “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 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.'”