Nixon: I am not a pothead

Former President Richard Nixon always kept one eye on his enemies, and now we know that marijuana advocates were among them.

Newly released presidential audiotapes from the Nixon administration, which can be heard at www.normlaudiostash.com, include Tricky Dick weighing in on a congressional commission to address marijuana policy.

“On the marijuana thing,” Nixon said in 1971, “I have very strong convictions. … Just on my own analysis, once you start down that road, the chances of going further down that road are great. I know there’s a lot [of experts] who disagree with that … because of the people that are, frankly, promoting it, [but] they’re not good people.”

In 1972, Nixon chatted about the issue with domestic policy advisor John Ehrlichman a day before the 1972 Commission on Marihuana [sic] released its report.

Nixon: What is your feeling about this damned report, this thing?

Ehrlichman: A lousy report.

Nixon: Can we give an inch on this?

Ehrlichman: No, sir. No, sir. There is no place. …

Nixon: Well, what do you think about legalizing the use and possession of marijuana?

Ehrlichman: It’s a crazy rule. What they’ve done is they’ve come halfway. It’s this, it’s like liquor. There would be no law against consuming liquor at home, but there’d be a law against selling it. Now how the hell can you make that work?

Nixon: Well, I made it clear enough to [the commission] that I don’t endorse it.

Radio/TV Correspondents dinner surprise

Washingtonians are eagerly awaiting Wednesday’s Radio & TV Correspondents dinner at the Washington Hilton, but event organizers are tight-lipped about the evening’s top entertainment.

“It is very different,” Fox News Washington Bureau Chief Brian Wilson tells Yeas & Nays. “It’s never been done before. It’s a little outside the box, and people will talk about it for 20 years to come.”

So secretive is the entertainment that Wilson hasn’t even let his executive committee in on the secret (Wilson serves as vice chairman of the Capitol Hill Radio/TV Correspondents’ Association). Although Wilson did try to get Sacha Baron Cohen (aka Borat) for the event, Cohen’s scheduling difficulties got in the way.

The national anthem will be sung by country star Ricky Skaggs, and the evening will feature the debut of a new JibJab.com cartoon video. The video will parody the state of television journalism and include such cartoon appearances as Anderson Cooper, Geraldo Rivera, Larry King and even Wilson himself. More than 2,400 guests are expected at the dinner, and President Bush will make his first appearance at the dinner since 2004.

Hoyas win on basketball court

It was a victory for Georgetown’s basketball team on Wednesday night.

No, not that team, which plays tonight in the NCAA tournament’s Sweet 16. Rather, the Hoya Lawyas, made up of faculty and staff from the Georgetown Law School, beat the congressional Hill’s Angels, 47-38, in the 20th Annual Home Court Basketball Game at the Gonzaga gym.

The Hill’s Angels, led by Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, D-Ohio, fielded a bipartisan roster of members, including Reps. Joe Baca, D-Calif., Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. and Gene Green, D-Tex.

The Hoya Lawyas were coached by Law Center Senior Assistant Dean Everett Bellamy, who earned a measure of revenge after they lost to the Hill’s Angels 34-32 last year on a last-second shot.

The event raised $300,000 for the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless.

Janney: An honorary Washingtonian

Former “West Wing” star Allison Janney’s connections to D.C. run deep — and not just through her White House aide character on the show.

Janney and former co-star Mary McCormack were on the Hill Thursday meeting with members on behalf of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Then, it was off to JDRF’s new members’ reception in the Cannon Building, hosted by Rep. Zack Space, D-Ohio, whose 16-year-old son suffers from the disease.

Turns out Janney and Space both graduated from Kenyon College — and only a year apart. What, they didn’t remember each other from the tiny campus in Ohio? Not exactly: He was a football-playing frat boy and she confessed to spending most of her time in the fine arts building.

Then during the remarks, Rep. Nick Lampson, D-Texas, surprised her by pulling her biggest fan out of the crowd — one of his aides, Suzanne Jordan.

Jordan, it was revealed, started an informal group at George Washington University called the “Flammy Girls” (taking their name from Flamingo, the Secret Service code name of Janney’s character). Jordan and her friends would often visit Janney on the set when “West Wing” was in town to film, and once even dropped off a flamingo lamp for her, which Janney said she kept in her trailer until the end.

“We were in college and had little to do,” Jordan told us.

Jordan also gave Janney a flag that she had flown over the Capitol in her name during Lampson’s first stint in Congress, but couldn’t get to Janney in the intervening two years.

Hodes bonds with Capitol Hill statue

You can never tell what will happen in Washington after the sun sets.

For Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H., it occasionally involves talking to the statues in the U.S. Capitol Building.

During Tuesday’s Welcome Reception Honoring the 110th Congress, the freshman lawmaker told attendees that, late at night, he’ll sometimes go over to the statue of fellow Granite Stater Daniel Webster in Statuary Hall and chat him up.

“We have conversations,” Hodes said, although he wouldn’t reveal what about. We can only hope, however, that it’s only a matter of time before Hodes, who has recorded four contemporary acoustic/folk albums with his wife, starts serenading Webster.