Richard Nixon

Just as they say that the poor are always with is, so it is with Richard Nixon, arguably the most tormented American president, who comes back to us in the new book "Ike and Dick" (appropriately subtitled "Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage"). The author, Jeffrey Frank, admirably recalls the awkward relationship between President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the triumphant World War II commander, and his vice president during their eight White House years in the 1950s. Ike comes across as a tolerant and friendly father figure to the brooding and politically intense but ever respectful and almost worshipful Nixon.

On the 40th anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation as president, his admission of guilt has finally been made public in a 1983 videotaped interview with him by an old White House aide. Speaking of the "smoking gun" White House tape in which he talked about raising hush money for the arrested Watergate burglars, Nixon tells aide Frank Gannon: "This was the final blow, the nail in the coffin. Although you didn't need another nail if you were already in the coffin, which we were.

YOU remember Bob Woodward, the young journalist in shining armor who smote down Richard Nixon almost 20 year ago. Well, Bob is all grown up now and he's gone on to other things. A couple of weeks ago he co-authored a seven-part newspaper series which boosts the political prospects of Dan Quayle.By itself, virtually regardless of content, a week-long focus on the vice president connotes that Quayle must be some fellow, all right, if that great big newspaper, the Washington Post, and its famous reporter are paying so much attention to him. Add to this unfortunate impression the fact that the articles were essentially favorable to their subject,and the bewilderment is complete.

Not since Richard Nixon assured an audience of newspaper editors in 1973 that "I am not a crook" has a major political figure so conspicuously defended his character as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has done in declaring, "I am not a bully. " The governor's remark in a mea culpa news conference in Trenton came in the context of the brouhaha over the closing of George Washington Bridge traffic lanes into the town of Fort Lee on the Jersey side. It was ordered by Mr. Christie aides as a vengeful act against the town's Democratic mayor, who had not supported the governor's re-election campaign last year.

IT IS ONE of the great oddities of pop culture.The official White House photo of Richard Nixon shaking hands with Elvis Presley in 1970 remains the most requested picture from the archives of the Library of Congress, a postcard from the outer vestibule of weird.It shows the business-suited Nixon, a tight smile wired across his face, gripping palms with a bleary-eyed King of Rock and Roll, the high-collar of Presley's shirt lapping over a black jacket draped across his shoulders, a gold belt buckle above his fabled TC pelvis gleaming like a giant waffle.

The Nixon backlash is beginning to rage. When the former president died April 22, much of the media assessed his career with a nostalgic forgiveness -- and forgetfulness? -- that has raised the cry of revisionism. Trickie Dick as a great statesman? As antidote, the May 16 New Republic includes a collection of Nixon-hating quotes from past issues, ranging from a 1952 description of him as a "kept man" and a "phony" to a 1972 look at his "mean and cruel streak." The accompanying article, by Jonathan Rauch, judges Nixon's career "without considering Watergate," and still comes up with little of value: "We have spent the last two decades struggling to undo his errors, and may spend another two the same way."

RICHARD Nixon was a great leader who did a lot for his country and the world. And he would have done more if the tragedy of Watergate had not forced him to resign. Like most great leaders, he was a very complex man. No one who observed him as closely as I had the privilege of doing his last several years could remain unaware that he was quite a character.He was, for example, extremely considerate to the people who worked for him, making sure, for example, that their accommodations were good.

Eliot Spitzer signed off for good at CNN Wednesday night following the announcement earlier in the day that his "In the Arena" show would be replaced in the prime-time lineup Aug. 5. Spitzer, who started out paired with Kathleen Parker in "Parker-Spitzer," one of the most ill-conceived shows in the history of cable TV, kept his farewell remarks to a minimum quoting a famous passage from Theodore Roosevelt as to how critics don't matter, but...

Not since Richard Nixon assured an audience of newspaper editors in 1973 that "I am not a crook" has a major political figure so conspicuously defended his character as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has done in declaring, "I am not a bully. " The governor's remark in a mea culpa news conference in Trenton came in the context of the brouhaha over the closing of George Washington Bridge traffic lanes into the town of Fort Lee on the Jersey side. It was ordered by Mr. Christie aides as a vengeful act against the town's Democratic mayor, who had not supported the governor's re-election campaign last year.

REMEMBER? It wasn't Watergate; it was the coverup. And Richard Nixon could fire H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman in a failed effort to save himself. Now history repeats. It really isn't Whitewater; it's the coverup. And Bill Clinton, you can be sure, cannot fire his wife Hillary.So what to do? Week after week, despite a White House effort in lawyerly stonewalling, the impression grows that the first lady has a selective memory, an active past in litigious matters affecting her husband, an imperious attitude toward possible conflicts of interest and a tendency to drag close associates into the controversies over Travelgate, Whitewater, Madison S&L, Castle Grande, Vince Foster's death and other matters that have congressional committees on the prowl.

A new post-mortem account of the 2012 presidential campaign holds that President Obama's strategists toyed with, but rejected, the notion of dropping Vice President Joe Biden from the Democratic ticket and replacing him with then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The rationale apparently was that Mr. Obama's re-election was in jeopardy and that Hillary Clinton's popularity, particularly with women voters, would boost Mr. Obama over the top. In any event, the switch never happened and the Obama-Biden ticket rode to comfortable victory over Republicans Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.

"I gave 'em a sword and they stuck it in and they twisted it with relish, and I guess if I had been in their position, I would have done the same thing. " This great quote from the interviews that Richard Nixon gave to David Frost in 1977 summarizes Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler's significant, possibly gubernatorial candidacy-destroying, dilemma. When you are seriously flawed, as virtually every power-seeker is, and you give ammunition to your enemies, which not all power-seekers do in abundance, they (the enemies)

The release of the last 340 hours of the Nixon White House tapes adds little to what we know by now about the first American president to resign. Indeed, the final installment doesn't tell us much more than we should have known about him long before the first tapes were ever released. Except for documenting his excessive use of profanity, his contempt for many political figures including those working for him, and his galloping personal insecurity, the real Richard Nixon was always there to be seen.

Don't look now, my fellow Marylanders, but I think the Martin O'Malley victory lap has commenced. The governor, with a year and a half to go in his second and final term, has started telling us all about his impressive tenure. The governor gave a speech over the weekend that was mostly that - a way of cementing the local narrative about how his pragmatism and competency got us through the worst economic cycle in decades. Like everything else O'Malley does, it's all part of a strategy to enhance his standing as a Democratic presidential candidate in 2016.