(2 of 2)
Braden and Mankiewicz seem overly fond of making offbeat comparisons, some apt and some silly. Criticizing Attorney General John Mitchell's easing of school-integration guidelines, the columnists wrote: "If the Supreme Court had decided 15 years ago that the union shop was illegal, you can bet John Mitchell would—if necessary—have had paratroops closing up the union halls." They said Nixon's visit to Rumania was "as though Kosygin should decide to visit suddenly dissident Puerto Rico in order to converse privately with Eldridge Cleaver." Most outlandish of all, they compared Senator Edward Kennedy's televised explanation of his fatal accident to the abdication speech of King Edward VIII, who quit out of love for Wallis Simpson.
Behind the Façade. Although the column shows too few signs of strenuous legwork, it is at its best when the writers use their varied contacts to report what really goes on behind Washington's public facade. Their detailed account of the extent of defense contractors' involvement in a widely placed ad supporting the ABM preceded last week's front-page revelation in the New York Times by three weeks. They revealed that a proposal by Interior Secretary Stewart Udall to set aside 7,000,000 acres of land for national monuments was not approved by President Johnson because L.B.J. was miffed that Udall had just succeeded in renaming Washington, D.C.'s stadium "Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium."
The columnists have also shown a commendable ability to avoid a knee-jerk liberal response to every national question. Followers of George Wallace may be similar to those of Adolf Hitler in expressing their "grievances in hate," they wrote, but "they do no greater wrong than do those blacks whom it pleases some of us to call 'militant' instead of 'fascist.' " With unexpected sympathy, they noted that whatever concessions President Nixon makes to Hanoi in the Viet Nam war will annoy all the hawks in 1972, yet not guarantee support of the doves; he is "approaching that lonely position where the courageous act may lead to his downfall. It. is a lot to ask." They said flatly that the Kennedy accident on Chappaquiddick Island marked "the end of the Kennedy era."
The Braden-Mankiewicz column could easily use some of the needling levity the two display on a five-day-a-week commentary on Washington's WTOP-TV. Chiding local Young Republicans for assembling to watch a nudist movie, Braden suggested that the next step will involve "Everett Dirksen reading aloud from Portnoy's Complaint." Mankiewicz belittled the Potomac Electric Power Company's plea for customers to shut off air conditioners during an unanticipated "power emergency." Observed Mankiewicz: "The emergency is summer, which arrives in Washington and throughout the country every year and is most evident in July and August."