Ah, the intellectual epicenter of the vast right-wing stupidity - I refer of course to the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, whose lead editorial today (careful, it burns) castigates congressional Democrats for playing "games" with supplemental funding for the troops. At issue - the failure of the Democratically-led House to approve supplemental funding last night by a vote of 149-141. But wait, you say, there are 435 reps, how can this be? The answer: at the last minute, 131 conservative Republicans simply voted "present," ensuring that anti-war Democrats would garner enough votes to defeat the funding provision.

This is how the WSJ viewed it: "They [meaning Democrats] pulled the stunt of approving the domestic spending but voting down the war money." Of course, back here on the big blue marble, anyone with half a brain knows the only ones pulling a "stunt" on the supplemental were the Republicans. Heck, even those with less than half a brain know it - I give you Republican Minority Leader John Boehner speaking about the maneuver: "It was a political scheme."

Obviously, what the WSJ said today was an enormous, mendacious, deceitful, dishonest, untruthful, big, fat, LIE. But once you've all picked yourselves up off the floor at the very idea that the editorialists at the WSJ would ever be less than forthcoming, let's take a minute to examine this a bit more closely. Seems to me that these guys are depserately trying to send a signal here to their most conservative (and therefore otherwise uninformed) readers - don't blame the Republicans, please. Given all the great news the Republican Party has had this week, it makes sense. The last thing they need right now is to further alienate their base.

And yet, that's exactly what they did. This little stunt was cooked up by the same leaders who are telling House Republicans that they are losing because they aren't conservative enough--and I expect this "scheme" will work about as well as that advice has. But only if everyone knows about, and not just the inside-the-beltway types. So cue up those commercials and press releases, please - let's see all 131 Republicans listed with a tagline: "Refused to support funding for our troops." 

That's a millstone around the neck congressional Democrats recognize only too well, and it's high time it was returned to its rightful owner.