Nixon was the snake

Deep Throat takes fire -- a hero or a snake?
Watching Pat Buchanan on Hardball last night, the spin direction emerged quickly -- first, that Nixon didn't do anything worse than Kennedy or Clinton, and second, that Felt was a traitor to the White House.
Both are completely ridiculous.
Yes, Kennedy had affairs -- and so what? This didn't affect his presidency or his decision-making as president. And yes, Clinton had affairs -- and again, so what? Three or four episodes of oral sex with a 22-year-old woman had no effect whatsoever on his responsibility as president. With all the high indignation and harrumphing from Republicans now about both these presidents, they cannot identify a single presidential decision made by either man which was tainted by their affairs. In the Starr investigation the only wrongdoing charge Starr could come up with after years of investigation was that Clinton lied about having an affair. In both cases, the American public didn't care. Clinton's approval rating remained above 60 per cent even during the impeachment attempt.
In contrast, here is what the Nixon and his administration did (from Wikipedia):

"President Nixon and White House Chief of Staff H. R. "Bob" Haldeman were tape-recorded . . . on June 23 discussing use of the Central Intelligence Agency to obstruct the FBI's investigation of the Watergate break-ins. Nixon followed through by asking the CIA to slow the FBI's investigation of the crime—claiming, speciously, that national security would be put at risk. In fact, the crime and numerous other "dirty tricks" had been undertaken on behalf of CRP, mainly under the direction of Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy. They had also previously worked in the White House in the Special Investigations Unit, nicknamed the "Plumbers". This group investigated leaks of information the administration did not want publicly known, and ran various operations against the Democrats and anti-war protesters. Most famously, they broke into the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg. Ellsberg, a former employee of The Pentagon and State Department, had leaked the Pentagon Papers to the NewYork Times and as a result was prosecuted for espionage, theft, and conspiracy. Hunt and Liddy found nothing useful, however, and trashed the office to cover their tracks. The break-in was only linked to the White House much later, but at the time it caused the collapse of Ellsberg's trial due to evident government misconduct. There is still much dispute about the level of involvement of leading figures in the White House, such as Attorney General John Mitchell, chief of staff Haldeman, leading aides Charles Colson and John Ehrlichman, and Nixon himself. Mitchell, as the head of CRP, along with campaign manager Jeb Stuart Magruder and Fred LaRue, approved Hunt and Liddy's espionage plans, including the break-in, but whether it went above them is unclear. Magruder, for instance, provided a number of different accounts, including having overheard Nixon order Mitchell to conduct the break-in in order to gather intelligence about the activities of Larry O'Brien, the director of the Democratic Campaign Committee.

There is simply no comparison -- Nixon conspired with his staff and with government officials to obstruct criminal investigations, and he directed a White House staff who authorized or participated in criminal activities and criminal conspiracies, all with the goal of subverting the US electoral system and making sure Nixon won the 1972 election.
Now THAT was criminal. Felt was the patriot. Nixon was the snake.