Kevin Drum: 'Joe Wilson is as big a liar as JFK'

Proof that liberals shouldn't be allowed to try logic at home, the Political Animal says, all Republicans should roll over and play dead for lying liberals:

To understand just how reckless and venomous Rove's actions were, let's take a trip down memory lane. The year is 1960. John F. Kennedy was running against Richard Nixon for the presidency and making much electoral hay over the "missile gap," a supposed disparity between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the quantity and quality of ballistic missiles at our disposal. The Reds, Kennedy claimed, were kicking our butts, and he promised to fix this pronto if he was elected president.

Except for one thing: there was no missile gap. What's more, Kennedy had received top secret briefings from the Pentagon and knew this. Did that stop him from talking about it? Not at all. It was one of the big issues of the campaign.

Richard Nixon lost that election by a hair, and public perception of the missile gap was probably one of the reasons. Despite that, he never revealed — either publicly or privately — the classified information about Soviet capabilities that could have saved his campaign.

Think about that. This is Richard Nixon we're talking about. His opponent was spreading clear misinformation that he knew to be untrue. And there was a presidential election at stake!

The FLUBA Committee of Connoisseurs on Flawed Analogies wishes to point out that JFK at least did his lying for himself rather than ask CIA agents to do it for him. Other than that, if this is your story, you're welcome to it.