on a political limb where public opinion was concerned. Of those who watched the Frost interviews, 72 percent responded that Nixon was a criminal, for which there could be no place in public life. But Reagan was hardly alone. More and more conservatives, in fact, were making similar arguments themselves, with the same sort of unapologetic brazenness with which Richard Viguerie tested campaign finance laws. A Nixon speechwriter who was now a widely syndicated columnist, Patrick J. Buchanan,
