Which one was Nixon? What’s a “wall”? Can you really make them out of “stone”?

Maybe it’s all those 7 A.M. guest spots on the “Today Show.” Maybe he’s afraid of making the Bush enemies list. For whatever reason, a tidbit at a time, Tim Russert’s been losing his mind, or his spine, for quite a while.

The latest evidence came from this exchange during Sunday’s (7/1/07) “Meet the Press,” when Russert was talking with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat:

MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about two words that you used on a statement you put out on Thursday. I’m “even more disappointed now by this Nixonian stonewalling.” What is Nixonian stonewalling?

SEN. LEAHY: They have taken the attitude at the, at the White House that somehow they’re above the law. They—if they make a decision that there’s something they want to do, nobody should question them on it. The vice president’s even been quoted as saying, “The courts can’t question it. The Congress can’t question it.” That’s a Nixonian attitude, and it’s wrong.

Patrick Leahy’s a better man than I am, that’s for sure. If Tim Russert had asked me the same question, it would have gone more like this:

MR. RUSSERT: “What is Nixonian stonewalling?”,

ME: “You know, Tim, he came and went so quickly that I’m not surprised that you don’t remember that there was a President named ‘Richard Nixon.’ This Nixon fellow, while he had many fine points, mind you, used to do whatever he could to prevent any flow of documents, testimony, or any kind of information to the Congress, or prosecutors, or anyone whose loyalty he questioned.

“In fact, and I know you’ll find this part particulary adorable, he had a group of people he called ‘plumbers’ because they were assigned to seal any leaks of information from the White House, by any means necessary, a strategy called ‘stonewalling.’ What can I say? It was the 70’s, the Godfather movies were all the rage, when we weren’t boogie-ing down to K.C. and the Sunshine Band. Oh, how we loved our zany organized crime family in the White House!

“But wait Tim, you were in law school at the time. Surely his name must have come up from time to time? As in ‘People v. Nixon’? ‘US v. Nixon’? A commercial break? Okay... gee, I just got here!”