Q Toon: J. Edgar

And the winners in the expletive derby are "Gadzooks" and "Dang."

For all I know, J. Edgar Hoover was as foul-mouthed in private as Richard Nixon. Hoover came across as a hard-as-nails crime fighter, all business, who made it his business to know all the dirt on everyone in the country. That was before Susan Rosenstiel told Anthony Summers that Hoover got dressed up in drag to go out to Roy Cohn's private parties, where he was introduced to her as "Mary."

A little bit more back story to the cartooning here: I wanted to draw Hoover in drag in this cartoon, but after David Simpson's latest plagiarism scandal, I had to be careful not to copy Pat Oliphant's cartoon of J. Mary Hoover -- especially now that I gave This Land permission to cite me as having spotted three previously unnoticed examples of his down-to-the-crosshatch copying of other people's cartoons. (I would note that other cartoonists have spotted the same cartoons; The Oregonian's Jack Ohman also left a comment on This Land's previous article.)

To keep Hoover's garb contemporaneous with Hoover himself, the dress in the cartoon is patterned more after Marilyn Monroe's famous updraft dress or something out of the Folies Bergères. Not that it wouldn't have been fun to have shown him dressed like Snooki or Lady Gaga.