Wow, this is an amazing revelation: W. Mark Felt, the former number two guy at the FBI in the 70's says he is "Deep Throat," the mother of anonymous sources who brought down the Nixon administration.

This hefty scoop comes courtesy of Vanity Fair, which is running an article on the subject by lawyer John D. O'Connor in the upcoming issue (available here). Nice wedding present, Graydon!

This is cool. I wonder how/if it will affect the anonymous sources debate. Look for an update soon featuring a sampling of the fascinating and insightful articles that are no doubt being furiously pounded out right now. Jack Shafer, bring it on.

Update: Cool stuff is already emerging - our cousin at FishbowlDC has a great round-up, including a link to a 1999 Salon story which details how the title of Bob Woodward's "The Final Days" about the demise of the Nixon White House can be anagrammed to spell "Felt Had A Say In," so when you add the two together you get "Felt had say in the final days." Oooh, cool! Geeks everywhere are LOVING this. Other funny point from Salon: apparently Carl Bernstein's son Jacob Bernstein spilled that nugget at summer camp at age nine. Too bad, what a scoop it would have been for Women's Wear Daily!

Update to the update: Oops, in retrospect it probably wasn't smart to look for a good accompanying graphic by entering "Deep Throat" into "Google Images." I quickly switched to "shadow man", innocence intact. Thank you, Shadow Man! You always save the day!