Sometimes life really does imitate M*A*S*H, especially its earlier, funnier years when Larry Gelbart was overseeing the writing. In the second season episode “A Smattering of Intelligence”, Hawkeye and Trapper set-up the CIA’s Colonel Flagg and his rival G2 counterpart, Vinny Pratt, by planting conflicting rumors about Frank Burns in Frank’s file.
The result is that Flagg believes Frank is a communist, and Pratt think he’s a Nazi. Finally, Hawkeye lets the two renegades from Mad magazine’s “Spy Versus Spy” in on the gag:
“You two were so intent on finding some breach of security, some leak, you don’t need the real thing. You guys are self-leaking!”
That’s what the whole Plame scandal du jour has felt like, as the press collectively self-immolates for the umpteenth time trying to find (apologies to Todd Rundgren) something–anything!—to pin on Karl Rove.
And for what? As the great James Lileks wrote this past week:
The administration
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