Generally We Don't Pat People's Hair

"The View" continues its unique contributions to our political discourse:

[Joy] Behar said she's heard [Gov.] Blagojevich does a mean Richard Nixon imitation, but Blagojevich didn't take her up on her offer to say Nixon's famous "I am not a crook" line.

Behar later patted Blagojevich's hair.

Change We Can Believe In

Gov. Blagojevich forsakes RN.

Blago Liked McCain, Too. So What?

Who says April's the cruelest month? So far in December, the 37th President has been in the news thanks to the Nixon Library's latest tapes opening, the release of "Frost/Nixon," and the death of W. Mark Felt (Bob Woodward's famous Watergate source). Now word comes that RN was the political hero of...Do I really have to say it? Do I really have to speak his name? "Time":

While going to school at Northwestern University, [Rod] Blagojevich idolized Nixon, according to friends, frequently defending him during the Watergate scandal. According to a long-time Blagojevich friend, the future governor often found inspiration in Nixon's "me against the world" sensibility. Blagojevich particularly loved the fact that Nixon bounced back after the "you won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore" speech after losing the race for California governor in 1962.

As you may imagine, the "Time" story pretty much writes itself from there. ("Gawker" presented the snapshot above, which was taken in 1980, apparently in New York City.) Someday this kind of superficial compare-and-contrast sidebar will actually be cranked out by a next-level computer program as part of the new financial paradigm resulting from the death of print journalism.

In this case, reporters Eric Ferkenhoff and Howard Chua-Eoan push the envelope way too far by eliding Blagojevich's financial corruption with the profoundly ideological Vietnam-Watergate episode.

They also assert that Mr. Nixon "overstayed his welcome on the national stage." One might ask the young (if I may assume) journalists how they figured that out. Obviously there are those who thought January 21, 1969 was one day too long, whereas others (and this would also be a partisan statement) think the impeached President who should've moved out years earlier was Bill Clinton.

Lacking a script for the premature voluntary end of a modern Presidency, Mr. Nixon waited until the House Judiciary Committee had passed Articles of Impeachment, conducted a straw poll in the Senate, and resigned. What would Ferkenhoff and Chua-Eoan's approach have been? Do they have an alternative date in mind?

It's not the reporters' fault that Blagojevich liked RN, nor RN's, for that matter. But just as with the disgraced governor and his other hero, Sen. McCain, their stories and personalities aren't remotely comparable.

As a matter of fact, maybe a computer would've done better.

Too Ironic Even To Figure Out

John Dean, architect of the Watergate cover-up (and according to James Rosen, the break-in), is advising the PE on how to handle a scandal that may not exist:

Following your press conference, the Chicago Sun Times published a story of the refusal of Rahm Emanuel, your designated White House chief of staff, to respond to questions about his involvement with Blagojevich, and a Chicago television station is reporting Emanuel did, in fact, meet with Blagojevich to discuss filling your vacate senate seat. If true, as I read the transcript of the press conference, you have misspoken; if not true, in a post-Watergate world the burden is on you to prove it is not true - and you can only do this by having information from Emanuel explaining his actions in full. No one would be surprised if Emanuel or others did have discussions with Blagojevich or his office about your successor, but denying that such discussions took place will be the start of a cover-up. You should place the burden on your staff to give you all the information for cover-ups only compound problems, and if anyone withholds information, they should suffer the consequences.

Punk Me Twice, Shame On Me

In which Steve Clemons, a big-hearted, level-headed foreign policy realist who was the first executive director of the Nixon Center, cheerfully acknowledges he got punk'd by a transcript of an imaginary conversation between White House chief of staff-designate Rahm Emanuel and his fellow Chicago pol Gov. Blagojevich.

Notwithstanding the f-bombs, it's someone's fantasy script of what they earnestly hope Emanuel would've said if Blagojevich put the squeeze on him. Wishful thinking (and I join in their wish, for the sake of the new administration's coherence) from the same left-wing web site that published the lie, later republished by a credulous Andrew Sullivan, that Gov. Palin and her minor daughter covered up Trig Palin's true parentage. In this new-media age, more than ever before, consider the source.

Blagogate And Jackson's Airport

Rep. John Campbell (R-Newport Beach, California) continues to fail to pull his punches in his must-read e-newsletter:

Several years ago I exposed an earmark requested by Congressman Jackson for $231,000 which was directed to a non-profit organization to develop a 3rd airport in the Chicago area. The problem is that no such airport exists even on a drawing board and that the organization was formed by Congressman Jackson and one of his Congressional staffers runs it. I offered an amendment to remove this clearly abusive earmark but it failed by a vote of 48-372. I also tried to get national news organizations to investigate it further but none did, and in one case the prominence of the Jackson name was cited as the reason why....

In my opinion this Blagojevich scandal will be on a par with Watergate and the House Post Office. The effects will reach many powerful people and will the issue will not go away any time soon. I hope that it causes the public to demand more stringent ethics of elected officials and for us to demand more of our colleagues. If that happens, Governor Blagojevich may have perversely helped us all.

Shortest Honeymoon In History?

"Time", mentioning a possibility that at this moment in the nation's life should please relatively few:

[T]here are enough connections between the worlds of Blagojevich and Obama that the whole thing has the potential to grow beyond a colorful Chicago tale of corruption to entangle members of the Presidential transition team, to test Obama's carefully cultivated reformist image and to distract the President-elect just as he is preparing to take office.

Who Got The Vig From Maternity?

After the recent campaign's focus on GOP misdeeds, Michelle Malkin is having fun with accusations against Illinois Gov. Blagojevich, accused of trying to sell the PE's Senate seat:

Anything that breathed was a potential shakedown target. It's the Chicago way. Democrat Blago's so dirty he'd hit up a children's hospital for money. Oh, wait. He's accused of doing that, too.