I put in my time talking about Linda Tripp, and then some. But this stuff about Felt being a hero really does rankle (See Tim’s “Two Faces” post from this morning). It’s becoming increasingly clear that Felt did what he did for motives that have little to nothing to do with the high-minded stuff of New York Times editorials and Bob Woodword’s speeches-in-praise-of-me. The notion that a man who learned about bugging and breaking-in at the feet of J Edgar Hoover was scandalized by what Nixon ordered doesn’t pass the laugh test. Moreover, Felt’s family has admitted they’ve gone public now largely for the money.

That was all fair game to a certain extent, even if it was often untrue. But what drove me nuts was the way people would argue that Clinton didn’t do the things he did because Tripp’s motives were impure in some way. The New Republic even argued that Clinton was the victim of “private sector entrapment.” You cannot dispute facts by attacking motives.

Motives have never concerned me nearly as much as behavior. Bob Woodword reveals secret things for personal gain every day. That’s his job as a journalist. But when private citizens do it, people freak out and bring all sorts of bizarre ideological baggage to the table. Journalists aren’t priests and they don’t have any rights the rest of us don’t (or at least they shouldn’t).

But if you’re going to say that Tripp wasn’t heroic while Felt was, you are going to have to make a very careful explanation about why his motives were purer and more high-minded than Tripp’s were alleged to have been. Because, it seems to me that motive goes to the heart of heroism. If I shoot a rapist by accident while cleaning my gun, the result is good but I don’t think anyone would call me a hero. If Mark Felt leaked to Woodward in order to screw his boss or to pay Nixon back for being passed over, you’re free to think the result was good. But don’t give me this hero nonsense.