A reader has sent me a Doonesbury cartoon. Why? Because in a recent issue of NR, I had an essay on a ubiquitous, annoying, and wrongheaded phrase: “the right side of history” (and its companion, “the wrong side of history”). President Obama is a particularly ardent user of this phrase. In the 2008 campaign, when he said “the right side of history,” he meant himself. In his inaugural address, he used “the wrong side of history” — in reference to tyrants. And he has done his “right side, wrong side” act ever since.

The Doonesbury cartoon? It skewers — very skillfully — the president and this act. Go here. Our reader says, “When a Democratic president has lost Garry Trudeau . . .”

The cartoonist, a friend of WFB, was a guest at an editorial dinner one night. I sat next to him. We readily agreed on one thing: that his wife, Jane Pauley, is a sparkling, all-American babe. Every red-blooded male had a crush on her. Did she display political bias on the Today show? Put it this way: not more than Bryant.