"An Adolescent Tale Gone Awry"

OK, so this at first glance doesn't seem to be anything more than what our pull-quote title describes.

To recap, three imminently pubescent OC girls got in trouble by staying out too late -- so they concocted a tale of being assaulted by an unnamed and sketchily described vagrant in a neighborhood park. "36-year-old drifter Eric Nordmark" was subsequently arrested and incarcerated for EIGHT MONTHS while the girls stuck to their story. One of the girls finally broke, fessed up to her mom, and the three girls were subsequently arrested and sent to juvie court.

Indeed, not merely "an adolescent tale," but a classic (in the literary sense) American tale.

And perhaps more.

Stay with us here: we're diving headlong into allegory and hyperbole (as is our wont; do you have Confidence?).

If Scaife's Irregulars and the Starr Chamber could manufacture a worldview in which Bill Clinton's carnal libido and cunning linguistics could poison the minds of the Children of America -- can we not say that the Cheney Cabal's mendacity and falsehoods regarding foreign policy and homeland security can do the same?

I submit that these three preteen SoCal chickyboos are the VICTIMS in this sordid little tale. They are the victims, indeed, of the lies of George W. Bush and the example that these lies set.

These girls got caught in a jam, and did just what the Parsdint would do: they made shit up, identified a shadowy victim, and set the Proper Authorities out to punish the evildoer.

What was all that about "restoring honor and dignity to the White House"? Yeah, that knife cuts both ways, brother.