Strip Search

Politicians love to collect the original art of editorial cartoons in which they feature, and Richard Nixon's domestic affairs advisor, John D. Ehrlichman, although doomed, was no different. In February 1973, not long before Nixon fired him over Watergate, Ehrlichman wrote to Garry Trudeau asking for a Doonsbury strip parodying Nixon's relative disinterest in domestic affairs. The letter was released last month by the Nixon library. Read a blogger's sardonic take here.

I met with Ehrlichman many years ago at the library, when he was trying to enlist our support for a TV project on the scandal. He died in 1999. He always blamed Nixon for making the decision for which he went to jail: Over Labor Day weekend in 1971, sending burglars to get dirt on Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg. Scholars Stanley Kutler and Rick Perlstein have also tried to pin the Ellsberg caper on the chief. After all, it's the Watergate mother lode. If Nixon had even known about it at the time, it would tend to put a criminal coloration on his Watergate actions and statements beginning in June 1972. But none -- neither scholars nor self-serving aides -- has actually made the case.

Being Puritanical About Palin

Promoting the insights of Garry Trudeau, Andrew Sullivan continues to encourage the idea that Gov. Palin can't learn and grow as a national figure in order to make the most of her substantial political capital. How unfortunate when a world view excludes the possibility of redemption!

Besides, the title of Sullivan's post, "Why Palin Failed," begs the question: How? She didn't cost the Republicans the election; the economy did. She had about the same negligible effect as most VP candidates. She certainly failed to be the person Sullivan and others might have wanted her to be. But she's still going to be a factor in '12 and perhaps '16. I'm content to watch and see what she does, to see whether she takes the Reagan or the Nixon way. Whatever happens, it won't be dull.