We’ve all heard by now that the Washington Post Watergate source Deep Throat “outed” himself yesterday in the pages of Vanity Fair magazine. What few people have examined yet is the process by which that information eventually came to light and what’s shaping up to be an interesting story on the family of Mark Felt who saw the outing of Deep Throat as a way to fame and riches.

First let me say that I sympathize with Felt’s family in that the medical bills associated with Mr. Felt’s illnesses are probably substantial. And I admire the fact that his daughter opened her home to the former FBI #2 man and evidently took good care of him.

But there are several unanswered questions that the family is going to have to deal with over the next few days and weeks. First and foremost: Was Mark Felt of sound enough mind to make the decision on his own to reveal his identity as Deep Throat?

Apparently, when Bob Woodward received word this past weekend that Vanity Fair was going with the story, this was the first question that entered his mind. Woodward had seen Felt in 1999 at which time the family first approached him about writing a book with Felt about the mystery. Questions of Felt’s mental capacity bothered Woodward up until the moment the story broke:

Woodward and others at The Post were caught by surprise. Woodward had known that family members was considering going public; in fact, they had talked repeatedly with Woodward about the possibility of jointly writing a book to reveal the news. An e-mail from Felt’s daughter over the Memorial Day weekend continued to hold out the idea that Woodward and Felt would disclose the secret together.

Throughout those contacts, Woodward was dogged by reservations about Felt’s mental condition, he said yesterday, wondering whether the source was competent to undo the long-standing pledge of anonymity that bound them.

Then there’s the question of conflict of interest on the part of the Felt family attorney John D. O’Connor. Here he was representing the family in negotiations that spanned at least two years with various publishers and media outlets trying to get money for the family in return for the scoop. Then, when O’Connor got a tentative go ahead from Vanity Fair, he was actually writing the article for publication:

Vanity Fair’s story hinted at but did not answer a key journalistic question: Was Felt, who is 91 and in ill health from a stroke, of sound enough mind to have confirmed his identity to O’Connor, or to have told Woodward that their agreement had ended?

The Vanity Fair story muddies the issue somewhat. O’Connor notes in the story that Felt told him, “I’m the guy they called Deep Throat,” but the context is lacking. For one thing, O’Connor played a dual role: He was providing the Felt family with legal advice while also writing a magazine story, which meant that Felt’s revelation may have been information provided under attorney-client privilege and therefore not subject to unilateral disclosure.

What’s more, as O’Connor makes clear in his story, the Felt family was seeking to profit from Felt’s secret identity and therefore had an incentive to pressure a clearly conflicted Felt into going public.

Did Felt’s family see the old man as some kind of gold mine? The evidence so far would seem to indicate that the answer to that question is yes.

The ancillary question is did Mr. Felt understand that and did he approve?

The family was in a unique position, one that most people would envy but few would really understand. Depending on Mr. Felt’s mental capacity, their motivations could be both mercenary and loving at the same time. Why shouldn’t their father/grandfather receive the recognition as Deep Throat while he was still alive? He certainly looks happy enough in the picture above. And while the family received no money for the Vanity Fair piece, look for the “My Story” book coming very soon to your favorite book store and watch for the mini-series next May during network sweeps.

In short, the family is going to make a financial killing.

In a few months, they may wish that they kept their mouths shut. Along with the money will come more attention more quickly than they may be able to handle. That first interview (I predict either Barbara Walters or Larry King) will be one of the most widely viewed TV programs of the year. Total strangers will come out of nowhere and ask for money, for help, for autographs. And privacy will be a distant memory.

Our mass media culture consumes people like Joan Felt and Nick Jones. They’re about to discover what happens when the confluence of celebrity and news hits the purveyors of both; cable news. With an appetite more voracious than a pack of hyenas and the scruples of my pet cat Aramas, the Three Musketeers of media mayhem will flog and flog and flog this story until the scourging scene in Gibson’s Passion of the Christ will look tame by comparison.Come Saturday, when the cable news outlets have their navel-gazing “media on media” shows, watch for the head shaking and finger wagging from the panelists about how we’re overdoing this story, how the media is in another feeding frenzy mode, and how sad all this is for Mr. Felt’s family.

Do you think that will stop the hyenas from feeding?