Let’s consider Meacham’s initially dubious case, which he spells out in a Newsweek article online now, “Why Dick Cheney Should Run in 2012,” to be published in the December 7th issue of the magazine. He begins:

• “[A] run would be good for the Republicans and good for the country.” Insert joke: “The sound you just heard in the background was liberal readers spitting out their lattes.”
• Greenwald? “Jon Meacham tells a funny, original joke: liberals react to his column urging Cheney to run by “spitting out their lattes,” on Twitter. Burn. Get it? Coffee.

Good for the country, you say, Mr. Meacham. Why?

• “Because Cheney is a man of conviction, has a record on which he can be judged, and whatever the result, there could be no ambiguity about the will of the people.”

Nonpartisan evidence  – good start. Then:

• “Three years out, the GOP field does not offer a putative nominee.”
• “In an era of ideological purity within the party, Cheney is among the purest; no one can question his conservative credentials on national security, and his record in the House and as vice president places him beyond reproach from the base.”

But! “He was, it is true, second in command in years of great deficit spending…” So, kind of, Meacham admits. And:

• “A campaign would also give us an occasion that history denied us in 2008: an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way.”
• I’ll take Glenn Greenwald for 140 characters, Alex: “It’s unclear to Jon Meacham what Americans think of Bush — the 2006 and 2008 elections, and humiliating poll numbers, are very ambiguous.”

Lastly:

• “Cheney’s memoirs are due to be published—and thus due to be promoted—in the spring of 2011, not long before the caucuses and primaries begin. I’ll bet you that the Barnes & Noble in Des Moines (there’s a big one at The Shoppes at Three Fountains) is on the book tour.”

Or, as Greg Sargent of The Plum Line put it: Drudgebait. That is, a purposefully counterintuitive online argument meant to get the attention of Big Matt and run up website traffic. Gotta get those pageviews!

The joke may have been obvious, but the execution was flawless — which is more than you can usually say for Saturday Night Live. Last night, the show got off to a shaky start with a plodding President Obama and China press conference that dithered with gay jokes, followed by a musical theatre-type monologue from host Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in which he sounded like Kermit the Frog and committed acts of physical comedy. But then, a digital short! That means tons of editing and high-quality footage and no line flubs and celebrity cameos and… voilà. Laughs. A topical movie parody paired with the author of the biggest book in the land: Sarah Palin, 2012, Glenn Beck, Going Rogue — just watch: