First, phony documents were intended to sink President Bush’s 2004 reelection. Then, phony quotations prevented Rush Limbaugh from purchasing an NFL team. Now, the Left seems to be preparing its next tall-tale transcript to smear conservative foreign policy expert Frank Gaffney. Today’s Wonkette recounts last night’s skirmish between Gaffney and Ron Reagan Jr. on MSNBC’s Hardball, which I reported earlier today. The blog claims:

Gaffney screams at Reagan, who’s like, “…” Then Reagan essentially tells Frank Gaffney that he and all his stupid arguments are red herrings, like red herrings in a barrel that you shoot easily. And then, THEN, Gaffney’s all, “Your father must hate you so hard from beyond the grave.” This displeases Ron Reagan so!

The only trouble is, all its facts and quotations are false.

Anyone who watched the segment can verify his actual words. I included a partial transcript in my blog this afternoon. Matthews and Ron-Ron ganged up on Gaffney, who was as measured and unshaken as ever. When Ron interrupted Matthews, Gaffney asked, “Let me be attacked one-at-a-time.” He told Matthews the Afghan people prefer American “occupation” (Chris’s word) to Taliban rule. Then he pivoted to Ron Reagan, asking, “Would you, Ron? Would you want to be ruled by the Taliban?” Reagan then raised his voice, claiming that toppling the Taliban was not the raison d’etre of the Afghan war (!).

Near the end of the segment, Gaffney told Reagan, “Your father would be ashamed of you.” Reagan, shorn of his tutu, replied, “You better watch your mouth about that, Frank.”

Then Chris Matthews equated religious conservatives with the Taliban and the segment ended.

I don’t read Wonkette and thus do not know if her reporting usually involves flights-of-fancy. Presumably this was intended to be funny. And faking transcripts has been a problem for MSNBC. But in in today’s poisonous atmosphere, where inventing and then ascribing hate speech to conservatives is the Left’s lone stock-in-trade, it’s almost impossible to imagine this phony quotation not being recycled to hurt Frank, listing her blog as a “source.” Caveat lector.

History is hard when you have a thrill running down your leg....

For a show that prides itself on its knowledge of news and history, Hardball with Chris Matthews made some embarrassing errors last night, including the fact that Ron Reagan Jr. apparently doesn’t understand the Bush Doctrine. Chris and Ron, his guest “expert” on Afghanistan, came up with two historical inaccuracies within minutes of one another. When conservative guest Frank Gaffney said he hoped Afghanistan could be pacified, as Germany was after World War II, Matthews snapped:

Matthews: There were no American soldiers killed after V-E Day, and you know it. Stop bringing up. Stop.

Gaffney: There were people killed after V-E Day, as a matter of fact…

Matthews: Not in Europe…Not in Germany.

Gaffney: Yes, indeed, there were….

Matthews: When did this happen?

Gaffney: We had all kinds of operations that were going on by revanchist groups that were still trying to kill Americans and others.

Matthews: I’ll have to go and check this. There was no activity after ’45.

Gaffney: There certainly were activities.

Well, Chris, the group Gaffney referenced was called the Werewolves. Professor Perry Biddiscombe of the University of Victoria has described their campaign of bombings, snipings, and terrorism lasting from the collapse of the Third Reich “until at least 1947.” The History Channel even did a special on them called Nazi Guerrillas. I hope that helps. Thanks; Frank and I look forward to your on-air retraction tonight.

Now, for Ron Reagan.

In his position as conservative punching bag, Gaffney responded to Matthews’s question about whether the Afghan people would support continued U.S. military presence in their country. Gaffney replied they would prefer this to returning to the Taliban’s theocracy. “They would rather not be ruled by the Taliban again,” Gaffney said. “Would you, Ron? Would you want to be ruled by the Taliban?” Ron-Ron replied, “That wasn’t the reason we went into Afghanistan in the first place, Frank.”

Yes, actually, it was. Toppling the Taliban was the reason we initiated the war in Afghanistan shortly after 9/11, because that regime sheltered Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. President Bush swore that evening, “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.” You see, there was this thing called The Bush Doctrine. I seem to remember your belittling Sarah Palin on your radio show for allegedly not knowing what it was. However, the Bush quotation is still up on Wikipedia; check it out before your left-wing friends change the page.

Anything else I can help you out with?

Gaffney: "You have got a sanctimony factor here that is extraordinary."

I managed to watch two MSNBC programs last night attempting to defend Barack Obama from Dick Cheney’s incisive criticism over “dithering” in Afghanistan before my blood pressure hit 300. On the Right, they featured former Congressman Tom Tancredo and foreign policy expert Frank Gaffney, respectfully. Their opponents on the Left were:

The Ed Show: Joan Walsh of Salon.

Hardball with Chris Matthews: Ron Reagan.

Really? Ron Reagan’s expertise is in ballet, ungrateful nepotism, and smug sanctimony.

Gaffney, the clearest mind in foreign policy for 30 years, was ever-unflappable and took Reagan down, hard. Pairing Gaffney with Ron Jr. was sad to watch for a number of reasons (although his pairing with that other Reagan was extraordinary)….

It was rather like seeing Larry Holmes being forced to go through the motions with Scott LeDoux for seven rounds, dutifully putting up his guard against someone who had no business being in the ring with him.

The most underrated, disrespected heavyweight champion of the last 50 years.

The Gaffney-Reagan mismatch says a lot about the Left: Ron-Ron is a privileged whiner with no expertise on this or any other subject, who has risen to prominence by repeating leftist cant and — did I mention, by being Ronald Reagan’s son? (This formula would also explain the many MSNBC appearances of Frank Schaeffer.)

These criteria apparently qualify him above, say, Madeleine Albright or Peter Beinart. For many of Matthews’ viewers (of which there are not many), Reagan won the debate, because he uttered the mystical incantation of “No WMDs-Dick Cheney-unindicted war criminal,” a chant that blinds and enraptures them. As I noted earlier today when talking about Rep. Alan Grayson, Ron’s words are not an argument; they are a mating call only other leftists can hear.