Here. We go. Again. ... sigh ...

For those of you who haven't been following the Fox News - Dems Debate story, a recap: The Nevada Democratic Party got together and organized the first debate of the '08 election cycle, to be held in Nevada, and aired on ... (wait for it) ... Fox News. A number of people were outraged/alarmed; after all, why should they trust the staging and presentation of a Democratic event to what is essentially the Official House Organ of the GOP? Fox guarding henhouse? The pun's just laying there, people. Do with it what you will.

John Edwards gets out in front on this one, refusing to participate. The left-most part of the blogosphere agitates and seethes. The Nevada Dems probably realize at this point that they hadn't thought this thing through. Fortunately, there's always Roger Ailes on hand with a good quote or two, and he steps up to the plate:

It is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don't know if it's true that President Bush called Musharraf and said: 'Why can't we catch this guy?'

Pshew! Casus Belli achieved! And the Nevada Dems use this handy excuse to cancel FNC's participation.

But wait! Naifs from the left and the disingenues from the right both correctly point out that the joke was actually on Bush, a dig at how stupid he is.

Technically true. But please, don't come around me with that stuff, okay? I don’t have to tell you about message management and subtext, do I?

For instance, it’s quite true that no one in the Bush administration ever claimed that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. And yet a surprising number of people picked up the idea that this is exactly what they were saying. Many of them still believe it to this day, AND they believe they heard it directly from Bush. How did the administration pull off this feat of linguistic legerdemain of speaking the careful truth and causing people to hear what they wanted them to hear? By making grim pronouncements about the ‘lessons’ of 9/11 and then seguing, without transition, into the dangers posed by the lawless regime in Iraq. If the logic-impaired chose to see a connection between these two statements (and they did and still do), that’s their problem, right?

Anything that gets the Obama-Osama meme circulating helps the GOP and hurts Obama. Don’t think for one second that it doesn’t.