Jimmy Carter's timely criticisms of George W. Bush's executive stewardship call attention once more to another war and impeachment discussion with comments by a besieged Richard Nixon alongside a George W. Bush who has currently shrouded himself in escapist fantasy.

As Richard Nixon, after winning office through a successful joint effort with Henry Kissinger to jettison Lyndon Johnson's effort to secure a Vietnam peace agreement was hovering on the brink of impeachment when he escaped into historical fantasy by comparing himself to a revered American president.

Nixon compared his travail to that of Abraham Lincoln in his bleakest moments during the Civil War.  Bruce Catton, considered one of America's most eminent Civil War historians and a Pulitzer Prize winner for his thoughtful work, "A Stillness at Appomattox," delivered a terse comment concerning Nixon's putative parallel.

"I frankly don't see any comparison," Catton stated dismissively.