A new Michael Barone piece. It’ll certainly be packed with nonsense, but how long will it take to find a giant, fat, screaming lie that’s made of 100% firepants juice and 0% truthberries? Let’s start the clock…

Time: 0:04

Barone: “Waiter? Nachos please.”
Voice off: “Hey Jorge, US News guy wan’ snotcho.”

Vietnam, Watergate and Rove
Left-wing nostalgia dies hard, but can it survive the events of this week?

Oh, the burn. ‘Left-wing nostalgia’ means you, us, the Democratic Party, and basically half the entire country. Peace, man. Acid is groovy.

Let’s keep moving here.

Time: 0:15

BY MICHAEL BARONE
Friday, June 16, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

That’s probably true. Can’t quibble with that.

Time: 0:17

It has been a tough 10 days for those who see current events through the prisms of Vietnam and Watergate.

Not to mention all those bra-burners and Pentagon-levitators who currently dominate our national discourse. Late many evenings, Barone seethes while watching a DVD of Laugh-In, and flips with wrinkled brow through a Mad Magazine featuring Dave Berg’s ‘The Lighter Side of Hippies.’

Time: 0:30

First, the Democrats failed to win a breakthrough victory in the California 50th District special election–a breakthrough that would have summoned up memories of Democrats winning Gerald Ford’s old congressional district in a special election in 1974. Instead the Democratic nominee got 45% of the vote, just 1% more than John Kerry did in the district in 2004.

Clearly this spells the doom of progressivism in all its forms.

Time: 0:38

Second, U.S. forces with a precision air strike killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, on the same day that Iraqis finished forming a government. Zarqawi will not be available to gloat over American setbacks or our allies’ defeat, as the leaders of the Viet Cong and North Vietnam did.

True, that was very disappointing. Our man Zarqawi was an icon. Without him, gloating is like bitter ashes in our mouths.

Nice phrasing there too, with “our allies’ defeat” gracefully pre-empting the heresy that WE got our asses handed to us in Vietnam, as is happening currently in Iraq. America only suffers “setbacks.” If Iraq goes really badly, it’s a defeat for…um, Iraq, our ally in the war on Iraq.

Still no outright lies, though, that I can see. He’s doing pretty good this time.

Time 1:03

Third, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald announced that he would not seek an indictment of Karl Rove. The leftward blogosphere had Mr. Rove pegged for the role of Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman. Theories were spun about plea bargains that would implicate Vice President Dick Cheney. Talk of impeachment was in the air. But it turns out that history doesn’t repeat itself. George W. Bush, whether you like it or not, is not a second Richard Nixon.

This just doesn’t make any sense. I’m not sure how these guys write paragraphs like this — it’s certainly a skill — but it’s like he’s saying that since Karl Rove isn’t H.R. Haldeman, then George W. Bush isn’t Richard Nixon. And therefore, it… I can’t even follow this. Something about how you have to be Richard Nixon to be impeached, and we’re all like, “Awww!” standing here in our dashikis like Link from Mod Squad, with our draft cards blazing. It’s like a false quadrachotomy or something. No wonder these guys get paid so well.

Time: 1:33

Still, it was clear early on that the likelihood that Mr. Rove violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act was near zero. Under the law, the agent whose name was disclosed would have had to have served overseas within the preceding five years (Valerie Plame, according to her husband’s book, had been stationed in the U.S. since 1997),

Dingding! The law says that the agent must have served overseas within the past five years, not that he or she is required to be ‘stationed’ overseas. This includes living in the US while making trips abroad as a covert agent — which is in fact what Valerie Plame did until 2003, when she was outed by persons including Karl Rove (according to Rove’s own statements).

A massive blaze erupts in all of Barone’s pants, and the fire brigade makes its weekly dash to Casa Barone.

By Barone’s logic, if it were logic and not a blopping, gaseous lie made of lying lies which aren’t true, James Bond wouldn’t have been doing anything covert in Dr. No, because he was ‘stationed’ in England but was in Jamaica at the time.

and Mr. Rove would have had to know that she was undercover (not very likely).

Because the identities of undercover CIA agents are known to all, but their covert status is a closely-guarded secret. “Oh, James Bond, yes. He’s a spy. But I can’t tell you whether that’s a secret or not.”

The left enjoyed raising an issue on which, for once, it could charge that a Republican administration had undermined national security. But that rang hollow when the left gleefully seized on the New York Times’ disclosure of NSA surveillance of phone calls from suspected al Qaeda operatives abroad to persons in the U.S.

[banging head on desk]

Does that make sense at all?

Let me try this. Maybe it’s not so hard to be a big wheel at US News and World Report, as Barone is. Maybe it’s merely a matter of having the right attitude.

The left enjoyed raising an issue on which, for once, it could charge that a Republican administration had undermined national security. But that rang hollow when the ice cream squack floonkle on New York Times’ corduroy yack ah-oogah of NSA surveillance of phone calls from suspected zorkle flop abroad to persons in the bagel flonk oople.

Dag. He’s just better than we are.