Is there a "red line" for political cartoonists?

Let me say that although Barack Obama is not, in my personal opinion, the greatest President we've ever had (for the record, that would be FDR), he's so much better than the two mindless idiots who ran against him and the mindless idiot who preceded him that there was never any question about who I'd support. I don't object to people criticizing him, though, when deserved and when conducted with either factual analysis or wit.

Likewise, although I don't always agree with him, I usually think Pat Oliphant is one of our better political cartoonists.

But his recent bit, showing Obama with none other than Richard Nixon, is over the top. Equating somebody with Nixon is not much more a) inflammatory and b) irresponsible than connecting him or her with Hitler. It's Internet-blog-commenter stuff. Oliphant was around for the Nixon years, and he should know better.

Frankly, if the White House did sic the IRS on the TeaBaggers, well, my left brain says "Oh, dear. That's not very good." But my right brain whispers to me that I'd have done much the same thing, except that it might have been Seal Team Six, not the IRS, that I'd have unleashed. This is why, as I've said over and over again, I will never run for office. The conflict between doing the right thing and the thing that feels right would kill me.

Hard to believe, but ...

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein look back and conclude that -- shock, surprise -- Richard Nixon was scum.

Their thesis, with which I heartily concur, is that Nixon was at war with the country itself, fighting five assorted battles. If you were:

• Opposed to the war in Vietnam
  
• A member of or consumer of a free press
  
• A Democrat
  
• Concerned about rampant corruption and double-dealing
  
• In a category much harder to define: those who resist the revision of history by the intellectually dishonest and personally interested
  

then you were on his enemies list, whether he knew your name or not. I'm proud to count myself in that number.