Bob Woodward's Deep Throat piece in today's WaPo is pretty fascinating, but this bit is a little off:

Huston warned in a top-secret memo that the plan was "clearly illegal." Nixon initially approved the plan anyway. Hoover strenuously objected, because eavesdropping, opening mail and breaking into homes and offices of domestic security threats were basically the FBI bailiwick and the bureau didn't want competition. Four days later, Nixon rescinded the Huston plan.

Felt, a much more learned man than most realized, later wrote that he considered Huston "a kind of White House gauleiter over the intelligence community." The word "gauleiter" is not in most dictionaries, but in the four-inch-thick Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language it is defined as "the leader or chief official of a political district under Nazi control." [Emph added]

Though I have no reason to question Woodward's larger judgment about Felt -- he may well have been "a much more learned man than most realized" -- his use of the word "gauleiter" isn't an example of it. That word was very much a part of the American vulgate in Felt's era, as were several other terms of international origin that sound somewhat exotic today (think "quisling").

Anyway, as the title of this post suggests [Note: Deep Nitpicking, before titles went the way of the dinosaur], this isn't exactly what one would call a big deal. The article is engrossing (if you're the type to find such things engrossing, anyway), and the reporting that led to it will be remembered long after our grandchildren's grandchildren have moved on to that great newsroom in the sky. But, hey, why even have a blog if you can't use it to indulge your occasional desire to play lex police?