Richard Cohen, displaying consistency on whistle-blowers

Howard Kurtz asks this morning, Would "Deep Throat" be a hero in 2005? Well, that depends on which party holds the White House, doesn't it? He can walk down the hall and ask his colleague Richard Cohen whether government employees blowing the whistle on executive illegalities are heroes or not. And Cohen would answer "Yes." Or "No." Depending on who the president was. At least, that's what he's said in the past:

• On Linda Tripp:
  

  "It is, of course, impossible to defend what Tripp did. Her taping of Lewinsky was a reprehensible betrayal of her friend and was clearly undertaken for political purposes and personal gain -- a book deal....She seduced Lewinsky as surely as Clinton did and used her even more callously. This woman is a skunk."



• On Mark Felt:
  

  "He was No. 2 in the FBI back in the Watergate days, and he just could not abide the way the bureau was being abused by Nixon and his White House colleagues. They wanted to use the FBI to block any real investigation into the Watergate burglary. Felt simply would not permit that.
  
  I applaud. We all applaud, or we should. Here was a man who put his career -- and it was a truly great career -- on the line. Here was a man who took seriously all that stuff about duty and loyalty and -- permit me, please -- the American Way. He was, to say the least, no showboater. He did not rush out to write a book or appear on "Larry King Live" or sell his story to the movies, which he could have done. No, he did what he thought was right."