Issa Trope

Nixon library director Tim Naftali's critics claimed he was out out to get 37 because he was a leftist. Go run an Alger Hiss museum, one famously sneered.

But if you want to hear some real red meat, some classic Nixon-baiting, liberals are pikers these days compared to the new breed of conservatives. Listen to what Orange County's own Rep. Darrell Issa said on Monday evening while defending House Republicans' lawsuit against Attorney General Eric Holder over the so-called fast and furious debacle:

It's the Nixon standard. Are you entitled to cover up your own wrongdoing?...Nixon decided this a generation ago. You cannot commit crimes, including lying to Congress, and then cover it up and expect it to be covered by executive privilege.

Don't think Issa turned this trope to impress liberals. He said it on Fox News, and he made the point twice, in spite of two efforts by host Greta Van Susteren to quiet him and end the segment. Last year, he called the Obama administration "Nixonian." One assumes these talking points weren't composed by Ken Khachigian, former Issa consultant and Nixon factotum.

The Reason JFK Named His Brother

I'm sure the President is acutely grateful, even in the midst of the massive bipartisan health care push that will help define his term, for his attorney general's tender conscience:

Aides said Holder himself was so troubled by some of the reports [of alleged abuses by CIA interrogators] that he felt a prosecutor might be needed – even though the move is likely to be viewed as an unwelcome distraction by the White House.

Holder: U.S. Is A "Nation Of Cowards"

More upbeat, affirming rhetoric from the Obama administration:

"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards," Holder said.

Race issues continue to be a topic of political discussion, but "we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race."