52% of Republicans think ACORN stole the last election. That is, an organization that got outwitted by a dim-bulb film-maker and a skinny actress managed to pull off one of the greatest political conspiracies of all time.

Even if ACORN did manufacture votes — and bogus registrations of the Easter Bunny proves nothing — it is highly doubtful this made a difference.

1) ACORN would have been stealing votes primarily in parts of the country Obama was going to win anyway.

2) Barack Obama won by ten million votes. This would require vote-stealing on a scale that makes Richard Daley look honest.

3) That is assuming, of course, that all Republican political organization are as pure as wind-driven snow, which I somehow doubt.

None of this matter to conspiracy theorists, of course. Whether it is the JFK assassination or the moon landing, they are interested in confirming their preconceived notions, not analyzing objective fact.

In this case, however, there are parties with a very strong interest in promulgating this lie. They don’t want to believe that the country — a conservative country — rejected their eight years of fiscal recklessness, foreign policy buffoonery and Constitutional malfeasance.

The wreckage of the GOP is desperate to make the last eight years a triumph instead of a tragedy. They’re already attacking Reagan’s legacy, since many of his policies were one hundred eighty degrees from those animating the GOP’s corpse. Now they’re trying to rewrite the narrative of the past decade.

Me? I believe that up is up, down is down, black is black and white is white. My memory of the past eight years is clear and fierce. I’m not about to let some political shills engage in Soviet-style historical revisionism and tell me that everything was going swell until the evil liberals and media demeaned Bush, bashed Palin and stole the election. Too much has been lost for that.