"my friend from the Washington Post"...

 On You Tube is the film of the speech Pres. Nixon gave wherein he said, "I am not a crook."

Richard Nixon Associated Press Q and A Session 1973

uploader / channel:  Buyout Footage Hi...

During the question-and-answer session, a reporter from the Washington Post asked a question, and Nixon answered, saying, "my friend from the Washington Post"... 

        In the '90s when I worked as a lobbyist for a statewide organization of schools, when state legislators debated, they referred to each other as "friends" when they disagreed about something.

That's what Nixon was doing when he said, "my friend from the Washington Post" because the Washington Post, then, was publishing articles on a regular basis saying what he was doing wrong.

Which he was.

--------------------------- In my state, in the 1990s, a Republican rancher would refer to a Republican school principle, in the legislature, as - "my friend, Ed Olson"...

...He would also refer to a Republican lawyer who was elected to the legislature as, "a bow-tie liberal"....

        

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