It was an idea so outrageous that only an administration drunk on arrogance would spawn it. Against the backdrop of President Bush in China, extolling the joys of a free democracy, and the death of a Wall Street Journal reporter accused of spying, the Pentagon recently announced plans for a new agency that would disseminate disinformation.

The new Office of Strategic Influence, itself, wouldn’t lie, but would use independent agents — contract liars, posing as journalists — to spread falsehoods abroad.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, barked nearly every government watchdog. Not only would this undermine the flow of good information on which democracy depends, it would endanger the lives of every journalist working abroad.

CIA fictions, migrating back to U.S. publications, led to the Iran-Contra debacle.

Still, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and VP Dick Cheney kept shucking and jiving to keep the idea alive.

Rumsfeld assured us, "The Pentagon does not lie to the American people. It does not lie to foreign audiences."

Cheney echoed that the Pentagon should not use "public information channels to disseminate false information" — that the information provided to the public "needs to be accurate, as accurate as we can make it."

Pretty soon, though, these twins of candor and probity were cut down, as reporters underscored their weasel words: The Pentagon would not lie, but they could still hire others to do the lying. And, Mr. Vice President, just how accurate is as accurate as we can make it?

Slapped back, the president charged in, or was pushed in by a White House staff that was shocked — shocked! — by the idea of lying to the public.

Because even as City Paper goes to press, in announcing he is shuttering the controversial agency, Rumsfeld now denies that they would have spread misinformation.

Be that as it may, he then goes on to blame the agency’s demise on the media, saying that news stories made it impossible for the agency to do its job.

Now, if it seems bizarre to blame the media for doing its job, for keeping government honest, remember who’s doing the accusing.

These are the folks who still refuse to say who is in our prisons, the ones who are gutting the Freedom of Information Act, the people who are being taken to court by the GAO to get the real truth about Enron.