Anthony Gancarski: Karen Kwiatkowski Deep Throats Bush

Anthony Gancarski, in Frontpagemag.com (6-16-05):

Former Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, writing at Hate America Right website
LewRockwell.com, makes the self-serving and somewhat ahistorical argument that Deep Throat was just another "whistleblower," just as she and others who abdicated their positions to rat out their superiors are.

Whistleblowers in government can learn one thing from the current interest story about former FBI Deputy Director W. Mark Felt. The U.S. government and government-dependent media response is timeless and utterly formulaic. Predictably, whether under Nixon, Clinton or Bush, those who blow whistles and raise concerns will be attacked and discredited with a degree of personal viciousness reserved specifically for those who challenge the mythology of White House and federal beneficence.

Who are these “whistleblowers” Kwiatkowski extols? Among them are Sibel Edmonds, who in Kwiatkowski’s euphemistic words “spoke out about FBI incompetence and possible collusion in advance of 9/11. She has been and continues to be legally gagged and verbally abused by the FBI, the Justice Department, and the White House. Phoenix-like, she has responded to the dangerous leviathan by mobilizing hundreds of National Security Whistleblowers who are indeed having an important impact on the cowardly and corrupt Congress and the cowering tail-between-its-legs mainstream American media.”

Edmonds sounds like what Kwiatkowski would call a “soldier for the truth.” Kwiatkowski also reprises her praise for Joe Darby, Jim Massey, and Sam Provance. As she puts it, these “three military men…spoke out last year against illegality and immorality in the Defense Department, particularly relating to atrocities conducted by American soldiers and contractors in Iraq…In turn, these courageous and honest individuals have been continuously brutalized and degraded – emasculated if you will – by the Pentagon and the White House.”

As with the bulk of her previous work, Kwiatkowski echoes the rhetoric of Lyndon LaRouche. (Kwiatkowski has repeatedly denied a connection with LaRouche.) I pointed out the roots of Kwiatkowski’s crackpot theories about administration motives in the run-up to the Iraqi War here on FrontPage Magazine, as did Michael Rubin of National Review.

However, the best article yet on Kwiatkowski's dubious ties has been written by Edwin Black, an award-winning reporter and New York Times contributor, for the History News Network. It is important to note that Black is not personally ill-disposed towards Kwiatkowski: he describes her as an “simple-speaking, amiable woman” even as he documents the former Pentagon staffer's penchant for speaking loosely and naively about the "Zionist political cult in the Pentagon."

Recent events have drawn attention to another of Black’s observation: that Kwiatkowski, like W. Mark Felt, saw herself as someone who had to circumvent both the established chain of command and the democratic electoral mandate to make spurious and loathsome claims about a sitting president and his lieutenants. She went so far, in 2002, as to begin writing her columns anonymously. Entitled "Deep Throat Returns," subheaded "Insider Notes from the Pentagon," Kwiatkowski’s screeds were heavy with Zionist and Israel conspiracy-theory references. For example: "U.S. intentions in Iraq have been criticized for a lot of reasons...a Zionist political cult that has lassoed the E-Ring [the most senior offices of the Pentagon] and parts of Washington...using war to resolve years of piss-poor U.S. energy policies."

His notes, “her column activity probably amounts to the first time a sensitive security-cleared Pentagon analyst regularly published such commentary to the world at large while still on active duty and openly allowed it to be attributed to an anonymous ‘Pentagon insider.’” This speaks volumes about the dubiousness of Kwiatkowski’s “whistle blowing” as well as the gravity of what she was trying to do – namely, hamstring the duly-elected Bush administration in its efforts to carry out legitimate, in fact vital, activities on behalf of this country.

Did Kwiatkowski have the legal right to disseminate inside baseball info about the inner workings of the Pentagon? As Black contended, probably not:

When asked about the Kwiatkowski case, a Pentagon official pointedly explained that the right to free speech, official restrictions on public commentary, and the nature of Internet posting and blogging “are constantly being weighed against the need for legitimate security concerns...one way we measure that is through directives.

Black specified that Kwiatkowski's columns would likely have to with conform DOD Directive 5230.9, “Clearance of DOD Information for Public Release.” Worthy of particular attention here is Directive 5230.9's fourth paragraph, which stipulates that any "official DOD information intended for public release that pertains to military matters, national security issues, or subjects of significant concern to the Department of Defense shall be reviewed for clearance by appropriate security review and public affairs offices prior to release." What this means, essentially, is that Kwiatkowski was on legally shaky ground when lobbing salvo after salvo at the Bush administration. However, she was able to get away with what she was doing, and even able to find traction with political forces that she putatively had no alliance with.

Despite her repeated claims that she is and was a “conservative,” it was Salon.Com – a redoubt of the Left and no great friend to President Bush’s reelection campaign – that spotlighted Kwiatkowski’s work most vividly last year, in cooperation with the Soros-funded MoveOn.Org. As I wrote at the time:

The left-liberal Salon.comintroduced her to its readers and embraced a new promotional gimmick simultaneously on March 10. This was pulled off with an enthusiastic verve that would make Kwiatkowski the envy of most virgin contributors: “Welcome, MoveOn members, to Salon! Our new Washington bureau brings you this report from within the belly of the Bush administration beast – an eyewitness account of how radical ideologues hijacked the American government along the road to war in Iraq. Salon usually requires readers to watch a short ad or subscribe in order to view a complete article, but we thought this story was just too important – so we're giving you full access without further ado.”

Full access was granted, Kwiatkowski’s theories got more of a hearing than they deserved, the “belly of the beast” was probed – and somehow President Bush still won. Just as Nixon did in 1972.

Of course, Felt’s FBI engaged in activities that made what the Watergate Burglars did look tame by comparison. But in becoming a “whistleblower,” and having that status confirmed by the anti-Nixon, anti-Republican media, Felt somehow was exonerated for his excesses. The media has claimed Deep Throat was a hero, an intrepid representative of the best of Washington: fairness, justice, and the American way. And Kwiatkowski undoubtedly would like a piece of that immunity for herself. She and Felt have more in common: Kwiatkowski, too, was frustrated by her own career arc and broke protocol in the most wanton and lurid way because of that frustration. She just looked to cash in on her “heroism” more quickly than did Felt.

President Nixon’s considerable successes as president, as well as the Horatio Alger aspects of his story – a poor boy from a California farming family pulls himself up by his bootstraps to become the leader of the free world – were obscured by the muck kicked up by careerist Felt.

The likelihood of the Bush presidency being destroyed similarly by 21st century Deep Throat Karen Kwiatkowski, and the theories she has put forth, is unlikely. But it is instructive to look at the work of this self-styled heir to Deep Throat’s legacy, to see both how well-motivated would-be saboteurs work – and how “mainstream” media outlets go out of their way to lionize them.