Adventures in Bizarro Land

Courtesy of TPM, I'm happy to bring you the alternate reality of conservatives. Michael Barone has a piece out noting that "Bush Bashing Fizzles". The title alone is enough to raise eyebrows, when you consider that Bush's approval ratings are now at their lowest ever. But as TPM notes, the real sign that Barone has crossed over to a realm where Spock is sporting a badass goatee is this brief treatment he gives to the History of St. Richard the Crooked:

Richard Nixon, by obstructing investigation of the Watergate burglary, unwittingly colluded in the successful attempt to besmirch his administration. Less than two years after carrying 49 states, he was compelled to resign.

"Unwittingly colluded"? Man, if only we had some systematic documentation of what went down in the Oval Office after the Watergate break-in -- I don't know, maybe some sort of tape recording machine whose results had been known for three decades now -- then we could probably evaluate Nixon's true complicity in the scandal. But I guess we'll never know.

And Barone's certainly right that Nixon was brought down not because of his own crimes, the crimes he ordered others to commit on his behalf, the actions of Republican Judge John J. Sirica, the investigations of bipartisan panels in Congress, or the urging of Republican stalwarts like Goldwater who put their country above their party. No, it was all because of the Op-Ed page in the New York Times, and all them mean liberals who wrote such hateful, hateful things there.

Jeebus. Pass the hookah, dude.