Deep Bloat

There's nothing like the admissions of a guy few have heard of about a mystery most have forgotten to make a paper think they can relive its glory days -- witness the WP's all-you-can-eat Deep Throat coverage which includes everything from a historical primer (useful) to the inevitable blog (oh please). We're waiting for the role-playing game and screensaver. The only thing missing, of course, is an explanation for how the Post got scooped on a story they still are pretending they own. As reporter David Von Drehle tells some interny person:

Intern-y Person: Was the Post surprised by the way the story came out, especially that it came out in Vanity Fair?

Von Drehle: Yeah.

Surprised maybe, but still reluctant to admit defeat. The "Deep Throat Revealed Blog" cages thusly: "Many observers will give Vanity Fair the nod for definitively breaking the Deep Throat story," but the Post holds onto the title of havingconfirmedthe scoop, just six short hours later. Luckily for them, Joel Achenbach was already spinning sour grapes into gold: Posting five hours before the WP got all their ducks in a belated row, he wrote , "If Mark Felt really is Deep Throat, all we can say is: Oh. Him. Um, now what do we do?"

Well, you devote your entire front page and half your website to it, of course.

 FBI's No. 2 Was 'Deep Throat' [WP]