By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts
Wednesday, December 3, 2008

The "panel discussions" of Wonk Washington can be awfully tepid affairs -- maybe because they're not inviting Chris Wallace to enough of them.

After a screening of the new "Frost/Nixon" Monday, an A-listy panel (including director Ron Howard and author Jim Reston) began comparing Richard Nixon's misdeeds to President Bush's actions in the war on terrorism, in casual we-all-agree-here style. The Fox News host jolted fellow audience members by sternly scolding the panel.

"It trivializes Nixon's crimes," Wallace said from his seat at the National Geographic theater. "Whatever George W. Bush did was after 9/11 . . . and in service of trying to protect this country." Some applause, some boos from the media-political crowd.

Panelist Robert Dallek took the bait. "We historians look forward to having access to Bush's archives," he said, noting that the White House has tried to push back on records-keeping mandates. "To make the judgment you make in such a confident way, we need to have the records."

Wallace: "You're making suppositions based on no facts whatsoever."

Dallek: "Oh, come on! You read the New York Times."

Ah, Nixon! Always gets the juices flowing. The flick, about David Frost's 1977 TV interviews with the ex-prez, stirred up everyone's feelings. Screenwriter Peter Morgan said he worried viewers might think Frost inflicted a mortal blow on Nixon when he got him to apologize for Watergate. "I have no doubt that within minutes, like with a science-fiction creature, the wound had healed."

That controversial pro-impeachment ornament? Won't hang in the White House after all. "Oh, dear," said Seattle-based artist Deborah Lawrence, who created the red and white ornament that salutes Rep. Jim McDermott's (D-Wash.) support for a resolution to impeach President Bush. "This doesn't really surprise me. But it's disappointing that I won't get to see it on the tree."

Laura Bush asked all members of Congress to tap local artists for this year's White House decorations. Lawrence glued tiny text on the nine-inch ball -- and thought no one would actually notice her "subversive" message. But she shared her secret with friends, and the news exploded. "It took on a life of its own, obviously," Lawrence told us yesterday. "In a way, I'm speechless."

Sally McDonough, a spokeswoman for the first lady, said the tree decorations were not complete when she originally said it would be displayed: "We reviewed the ornament along with all the [other] ornaments, and Mrs. Bush deemed it inappropriate for the holiday tree."

Lawrence attended the White House reception for the artists yesterday ("They let us in") but didn't get a chance to chat with the hostess.

· Mrs. Landingham? . . . Mrs. McCluskey? . . . Kathryn Joosten, ubiquitous TV actress ("The West Wing," "Desperate Housewives") at Bar Pilar on 14th Street on Monday night, at a table with three younger folks. Turns out she was in town to sign with a speaker's bureau, lunch with Hill types, snag inaugural tickets and party at Andrew Sullivan's pad. Much like your day, of course.

· Ethan Zohn, long-ago "Survivor" winner, dribbling a soccer ball around the Mall on Monday -- final stretch of a three-month journey from Boston raising money for AIDS and youth soccer in Africa. He suffered a knee injury last month, so D.C. soccer stars Ben Olsen and Rebecca Moros helped dribble to the end.

"I didn't know you were good." -- Queen Elizabeth II praising Condoleezza Rice after a piano recital at Buckingham Palace Monday. The secretary of state, on her last official trip to London, asked to play Brahms at the palace; the queen was apparently unaware that Rice is a classically trained pianist -- not some VIP dabbler.