Mm huh.

Safire was the literary one, though. You remember Bill Safire, the speechwriter, the one who put words in Nixon's mouth?

Uh, he writes for some newspaper now, huh?

The New York Times, ya geek. Who let you in here? Where's your bursar's card?

Uh, I left it back in Dunster House. Literary, huh?

Yeah, right. Safire was the one who compared Nixon to a layer cake: Cut it from the top and you get all the different layers plus icing and Happy Birthday America, but go in from the side on a layer like Watergate and all you get is crumbs.

Let them eat cake--did he say that?

Aw shaddup. You should go read Jimmy Breslin's book, How The Good Guys Finally Won--that's about your speed, real light and entertaining and not too long--only take you a couple of days.

Naw, can't do that--I'm writing my thesis.

But isn't your thesis about Ireland?

Oh, yeah, it's called "The Inherent Dishabille of the Fourteenth Crack from the Left on the Blarney Stone and Its Psychotraumatic Relevance to Tongue Elevation in Elementary Gaelic, Grades 1-3, County Cork."

See, you should read Breslin. He's a foine ruddy Irish lad who latched onto that foine ruddy Irish pol Tip O'Neill to become the Giant Leprechaun who could set the truth free about Watergate.

Mmmm.

And if you read Breslin you won't have to keep referring to those plump who-said-what-to-whom-and-when volumes by the various reporters. Like CarlBobRobertDustin's From the Police Blotter To Fame and Fortune in 14,781 Easy Steps. Or J. Anthony Lukas's Nightmare, his "Help me I think I'm falling in love with you" paean to the scandal that provided him three good years of upper-middle tax-bracket living. Or Teddy White's Breach of Faith, an act of penance for his canonization of Nixon in 1972.

What a waste a time. They could start a Book-A-Month Club just on Watergate.