Remember how smart I said Ben Varkentine was to give a rave review to my new book, Wertham Was Right? Well, it turns out that Kenneth Plume over at IGN-FilmForce is equally smart.

It's probably rude to "review" a tribute drawing but I was struck by the way many of the political cartoonists (linked below) either didn't draw a very good Bob Hope or simply avoided having to do so. This man is not hard to draw, especially if you've seen the simple caricature that served as the basis of the long-running DC comic book. It was designed by Owen Fitzgerald but the drawing above is by one of his successors on the comic, Mort Drucker…the "definitive caricaturist" of Bob Hope, as far as I'm concerned. Mr. Drucker is also the definitive caricaturist of most other celebrities but we needn't dwell on that at the moment.

There was always something about the rendition of Hope in the comic that not only made him work as a funnybook character but caused you to read the dialogue with Bob's voice and delivery in your head. Worked for me, anyway.

Here's a medley of political cartoons about the passing of Bob Hope. You may note that in his honor, they repeat a lot of the same gags over and over.

Earlier, I linked to an article in Playbill about a planned Broadway show using Monty Python material. A well-placed source tells me that the Playbill item is wrong and that no such show is likely to materialize, though there are some new Python-related projects in the pipeline. I believe my well-placed source on this.

The other day, I linked to Jim "Rant-Man" MacQuarrie's website and a lot of you laughed yourselves silly over his exchange of e-mails with one of those gents who wants to share Nigerian cash with a stranger. You enjoyed Part One and you really enjoyed Part Two.

Well, Part Three is now up. Enjoy. And after you've enjoyed that, check out some of Jim's other attempts to scam the scammers (or spam the spammers or whatever the term should be…)

There's something weird with that UPI story I just linked to. It says the gent at the Richard Nixon library said the alleged conversation which Magruder describes between Nixon and John Ehrlichman never took place. The UPI quotes the Chicago-Tribune quoting the director (John Taylor) as follows…

The Chicago Tribune quoted Taylor as saying: "The White House Daily Diary, which details all the president's meetings and telephone calls, shows that Ehrlichman did not meet or talk with President Nixon at any time on March 30, 1972."

And when you go over to the story in the Chicago-Tribune, it includes this line…

According to Magruder, Mitchell questioned the idea of the break-in and decided to call H.R. Haldeman, Nixon's chief of staff. He said Mitchell spoke with Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, Nixon's domestic policy adviser. After that, Magruder said, he heard Nixon's voice over the telephone receiver.

All well and good, but in the documentary as aired last night, Magruder said nothing about Ehrlichman being involved in the call. He said he called Haldeman and then Haldeman had him put Mitchell on the phone. Then Nixon joined in on the conversation so you had four people involved: Nixon, Haldeman, Mitchell and Magruder. No mention of Ehrlichman.

So if Nixon's Daily Diary does show no conversation with Ehrlichman, that's irrelevant…unless Magruder made that claim in some unaired footage, in which case the newspaper reports should have said so.

This of course raises the question as to whether Nixon's Daily Diary shows any record of Nixon joining in on a conversation between Mitchell and Haldeman on that day. Even if it occurred, it might not have been listed since in Magruder's account, Nixon neither initiated nor received the call. He merely picked up the phone and joined in. (Nixon was famous for doing that. Barry Goldwater used to say that he was certain when he spoke to Haldeman on several occasions, Nixon was listening in. One presumes this would not be noted in any Daily Diary.) My assumption here would be that if he could, the head of the Nixon Library would have said, "The records show that Mitchell did not meet or talk with President Nixon at any time on March 30, 1972." But the evidence presumably does not bear that out.

In any case, it seems to me that Magruder's claim is either totally spurious or more damning than the above denial can possibly deny. It's not just that he's saying he overheard Nixon order the break-in but that Haldeman and Mitchell both claimed Nixon wanted it done. These were the two men closest to Nixon. Years ago, that British documentary on Watergate uncovered a Haldeman memo from the period that seemed to suggest that he had advance knowledge of the break-in, and there was a rough consensus among Nixonian scholars that if Haldeman knew, it was inconceivable that Nixon did not. Now, here's Jeb Magruder with a much more explicit, unambiguous claim that Haldeman said the president wanted the break-in to proceed. Even without the part of the story where Nixon joins in the phone call and repeats it, that's a pretty significant assertion.

One cannot rule out the possibility that Magruder is either remembering things that never occurred or blatantly lying for some sinister reason. But the denial from the Nixon library sure sounds meaningless to me now.

The director of the Richard Nixon library says that the conversation Jeb Magruder claims to have overheard did not occur. Or at least, Nixon's daily diary shows no record of him having talked with John Ehrlichman the day that Magruder says he eavesdropped on them discussing the Watergate break-in.

This is one of those "we'll probably never know" arguments. On the one hand, you have these records of Nixon's daily diary. On the other hand, those records probably are not complete and could even have been scrubbed of incriminating meetings. On the one hand, the call detailed by Magruder sounds awfully pat and you have to wonder why he sat on this info for so long. On the other hand, Magruder is a Presbyterian minister now with no visible reason to lie.

Boy, I wish they'd been able to restore that eighteen-and-a-half minute gap. It was in what was probably the first conversation Nixon had with H.R. Haldeman after the burglars were caught and Haldeman's notes said they'd discussed the news reports of the break-in. Maybe someday, someone will develop a way to "unerase" that tape.

Go read Jimmy Breslin. It's about a 21-year-old American soldier who died recently in Iraq. Very touching. Very important.

I really enjoyed Watergate Plus 30: Shadow of History, which is a PBS special that retells the tale of the scandal that brought down Richard Milhous Nixon. It ran tonight on KCET in Los Angeles and airs on various PBS stations over the next few days. It was a bit rushed in the latter parts of the story and I think they left out my all-time favorite Watergate figure, Rabbi Baruch Korff. But it was still very well done and I think I'm going to order the DVD that was offered at the end.

Via newsreel footage, clips of Nixon's infamous tapes and interviews with most of the participants who are still alive, they laid out the story quite well. One cannot help but compare and contrast some elements of the whole mess to scandals (and their handling) by later Chief Execs. If you can catch it, do.

I also caught a little of an episode of American Masters that followed, profiling Gore Vidal. Saved it on the TiVo for when I have more time but it looked pretty interesting, as well.

Would you like to see a live Monty Python stage show? Yeah, me too. But would you like to see it if it didn't feature any members of Monty Python? I don't know how I feel about this.

Garry Wills sort of reviews Hillary Clinton's autobiography but really uses it as an excuse to talk about her in a larger context. Those who want to believe she is either blemish-free or demon-possessed will not like the portrait he paints of her. But it may be the most accurate of the many that have been written.

And from Jon Belmont himself comes an e-mail…

i'd been joking in speeches and on that air that bob hope planned to get back at me by outliving me. like mark twain and — until sunday night — ole bob, i'm glad that reports of my demise were greatly exaggerated.

So am I. We've never met but I instinctively feel sorry for a newsman who is handed an erroneous report and reads it in the line of work. People forget that it was someone else on the chain-of-command who actually made the mistake. In this case, it apparently started with a speech on the floor of the House by then-Congressman Bob Stump. And it wasn't even his fault. According to this article…

The Republican had been asked by then-Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, to make the announcement on the House floor.  Staff members had alerted Armey to the news on June 5, 1998, after seeing Hope's obituary posted on the Web site of the Associated Press. The story had been posted by mistake, however. It was advance material not intended for publication until the comedian's death.

The latest confusion seems to stem from the fact that Bob Hope outlived Bob Stump, who passed away about a month ago. The person who reminded me of the incident apparently mixed up just who it was who had announced Hope's demise only to be outlived by him.

Anyway, Mr. Belmont, thanks for the note and my apologies for the error. Your colleague at WTMJ radio, Rob Hart, also wrote to tell me of his shock at your death and said he hoped it wouldn't interfere with your lunch date tomorrow. He said the tape gets frequent play in your newsroom, so apparently Bob Hope was able to provoke laughter merely by not dying.

Several folks are informing me this morning that, contrary to the item I posted, newsman Jon Belmont is not dead. He's the one who reported that Bob Hope was dead when he wasn't, but he's now the morning newsperson at WTMJ radio in Milwaukee. Sorry for passing on misinformation but in this case, it almost seems appropriate.

Ben Varkentine was a wise, perceptive critic when he reviewed my first collection of columns. Now with its sequel, he's gotten even wiser and more perceptive.

In each of the last five years, Comedy Central has televised a heavily-edited and sloppily-bleeped Friars Roast. The subjects were — and I'm not sure of the order — Jerry Stiller, Rob Reiner, Drew Carey, Hugh Hefner and Chevy Chase. The last of these was horrible. They couldn't get too many celebrities to show and most of those who did turn out didn't seem to be all that thrilled or inspired by the topic of Chevy Chase. The best was the Hefner one, which had some very funny moments. (If you TiVo it and don't want to sit through an hour of penis and masturbation jokes, do this: Fast forward to catch a little of Sarah Silverman. Then skip ahead to watch Ice-T, not because he's any good but because what he does is the set-up to Gilbert Gottfried. Then jump to the end and watch Gilbert, who is absolutely hilarious. In fact, he's almost worth wading through all the lines about how Hef sleeps with seven bimbos and still can't get it up.) The others have their moments — for instance, on the Rob Reiner roast when Richard Belzer forces Reiner to read aloud Roger Ebert's unkind review of North. Or Jason Alexander's opening musical number on the Stiller affair.

Anyway, Comedy Central has severed ties with the Friars Club and pacted with Denis Leary's production company to produce a new series of Friarless roasts. The first one, which debuts August 10, happens to be a roast of Denis Leary. What an incredible coincidence. I have no idea if it'll be any good but as they usually do, Comedy Central is using the occasion of a new roast as an excuse to rerun the old ones. If you want to be horrified, the Chevy Chase testimonial runs on Monday evening. If you want to see Gilbert, the Hefner roast airs a week from Sunday (8/9). For the others, consult your local TV listing website.