Avedon Carol (from today; sorry, no perma-links) is surprised that the Washington Post would print a letter praising Richard Nixon and Andrew Johnson for running effective presidencies despite investigations and impeachment, even though Johnson is regarded by most historians as an abject failure, and the achievments cited by Nixon's latter-day defenders all came before Watergate.

Why the surprise? This same paper just printed a column lauding Art Modell (he of the midnight ride out of Cleveland) as a model of responsible sports team ownership.

Speaking of which, the commissioner's office still says that they absolutely did not steer the Red Sox sale away from the high bidder, toward friends of Bud. The attorney general, charged with seeing that charities with a stake in the team got fair value, still doesn't believe it, in part because the story from the team and the commissioner just keeps getting murkier.

But this is Boston. We have traditions to uphold in these matters.