In the course of his rampage through Europe, Napoleon observed that history is but a set of lies agreed upon. General Bonaparte, possessed of great intellect and having ravaged civilizations both old and ancient, spoke with great authority and so it’s especially regrettable that Les Moonves over at CBS never got the memo. All across the dial, conservative talk show hosts are grousing that the fraudulence delivered in the two-part miniseries “The Reagans” does not conform to their consecrated set of fabrications. After Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie angrily protested the eye network’s portrayal of Ronald Reagan, the Media Research Center called for an advertising boycott. In a letter to potential sponsors, center President Brent Bozell accused the producers of “deliberately defaming” the Gipper by unleashing “a blatantly unfair assault on the legacy of one of America’s greatest leaders.”

Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, outraged by such a willful distortion of the facts, accused the screenwriters of plagiarism. “This could,” she mused, “be the beginning of a perilous drift in which fact and fiction are wantonly juxtaposed. Imagine Dan Rather telling you that Hustler magazine has nude photos of Jessica Lynch or that Franklin Roosevelt didn’t have polio.”

The saga thickened as the media whipped itself into a self-important frenzy. The public helplessly watched as Truth and Fairness were set against the First Amendment in what can only be described as a high-class cockfight. Pressure steadily mounted until Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone’s Depends could no longer restrain the violent offerings of oatmeal and stewed prunes. (Note to self: Don’t follow Viacom honcho into Wal-Mart men’s room.) Redstone finally caved and cancelled the show – well, moved it from CBS to Showtime, which is essentially the same thing. I mean how many times have you watched “Dead Like Me,” or “Odyssey 5?”

With the impending purchase of one-third of DirecTV, News Corp. satellites will finally cover the globe, solidifying their role as the HMS Victory of the media sea. The company sees itself as omnipotent, so it came as a great affront then when U.S. District Judge Denny Chin said Fox’s case against comedian Al Franken was “wholly without merit.” Further injury was inflicted when Franken’s right-gouging book zoomed to the topped of the best-seller list. Upon learning that the words “fair” and “balanced” would stay in the public domain, Rupert Murdoch became only more determined dispatch his lawyers like a squadron of flying monkeys. Sadly, no suitable victim crossed his bow and Rupert was left with only one course of action: Master and Commander would sue himself.

Fox News went after their entertainment division for running a news crawl on “The Simpsons” which spoofed Murdoch’s conservative bias by asking, for example, if Democrats caused cancer. After realizing that Fox was remunerating attorneys on both sides of the docket, the case was settled with the stipulation that producers are hereby banned from running ticker tape across the bottom of cartoons because viewers might mistake them for real newscasts. What! Cartoons aren’t real? I guess Dennis Kozlowski won’t have Krusty the Clown at his birthday party after all.