Bernstein on Mark Felt: Not a Leaker, but 'Did it for the Right Reasons'

December 19, 2008 4:01 PM

ABC News' Rick Klein Reports: Sam Donaldson and I interviewed journalist Carl Bernstein Friday on ABC NewsNOW’s “Politics Live,” to talk about the death of W. Mark Felt Sr. –- better known, of course, as “Deep Throat.”

Bernstein made an interesting –- and I think important –- distinction that is generally lost in descriptions of the help Felt offered to Bernstein and his former colleague, Bob Woodward, in reporting out the Watergate story.

“It's not about leaking,” he said. “We have to be careful about the word ‘leaking.’ The White House certainly thought that's what was happening. We were trying to squeeze information out of the people we were talking to, including Mark Felt. We wished that we could have had Mark Felt leaking to us.”

Bernstein –- who only met Felt in person for the first time this year (he was Woodward’s source) –- had nothing but praise for the man who helped bring down a president.

“He was invaluable. He was courageous,” he said. “He did it for the right reasons -- complicated reasons -- but they certainly included that he knew that this was a criminal presidency and that there was only one place in a criminal presidency -- that he with his information -- could go that had not been infected by that unconstitutionality and criminality . . . and that was the press, which is the last refuge, and remains so in our culture.”

“But I think that really the real motivation we could see was his understanding of what a threat to democratic institutions the Watergate ball itself was,” Bernstein said.

Tune into Friday's edition of Politics Live for more.