Joseph Ellis is creeping back from his "Why Wasn't I in Vietnam" scandal using his obviously excellent connections in the high-middlebrow press. It is rather sick to see him doing his oracle of the Founders number again in this week's "New York Times Book Review." Reviewing a book that he himself might have written on the rivalry between Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall, Ellis might be writing about his own work when he praises James F. Simon's ''What Kind of Nation'' as "a major contribution not because it breaks new scholarly ground, but rather because it moves across familiar ground with such clarity and grace." Ellis also shows some craftiness and grace himself by directing a bon mot at the press while invoking one of their favorite concepts regarding the academic world of which Ellis was once, and I believe still is, a card-carrying member. According to Ellis, the author "has the storytelling skills of a former journalist accustomed to writing for an audience that lives outside the groves of academe." The obvious joke about Ellis's own "storytelling skills" will now be omitted.