Scott Walker, the lazy-eyed Republican Wisconsin governor who doesn't care for unions but will always answer a big donor's call, got caught in an eensy lie today, when he insisted he'd voted for conservative hero Ronald Reagan, and forgot he was too young to vote for Reagan.

Walker made the very basic error in an interview with an ideologically friendly website last month, according to Talking Points Memo:

"I remember, I was a teenager, had just become a teenager and voted for Ronald Reagan — limited government, you know, smaller government, lower taxes, strong national defense," he said. "You knew what you were getting. You knew how a Reagan administration, a Reagan presidency was going to be better for you."

However, as James Rowen and Blogging Blue note, Walker was born on Nov. 2, 1967. He would have been age 13 for the 1980 election and age 17 for the 1984 election — both times Reagan ran.

How do you forget who the fuck you could and couldn't vote for? You don't. This isn't a simple misunderstanding. This is a coded message of solidarity to other past-worshiping conservatives that says:

1) Voting is ostentatious! When it's easy to vote, it's easy to forget the details, just as it's easy to forget who does your lawn work or valet service at the country club. It's just awesome how easy it is for people like Scott Walker to vote, and occasionally forget the details.

2) Truth is aspirational! It is not important to get the facts right as long as the worldview is right. Facts are downright attracted to the right worldview, will in fact align themselves to that worldview, like metal shavings moving in neat lines when placed near a magnet.

Manmade global warming; the darker aspects of corporate citizenship; the sources and consequences of economic inequality; the status of women, minorities, and gays; not voting for Reagan: If the facts on these issues simply aren't compatible with the conservative outlook, jettison the facts. Jettison them publicly. Make a show of it. You have proven your faith. Watch your coreligionists battle to outdo you. They can't. They'll have to affect a racial animus just to keep pace with you.

Being wrong in highly public, highly trollish ways is the new red elephant pin of the conservative Rotarian, the new Vera Bradley bag of the Escalade-driving GOP mama. Quick, get your own bullshit anachronistic self-myth before they're all sold out!

Update: John Hawkins, the "Right Wing News" editor who published the interview in question with Scott Walker, is now saying he reported Walker's statement incorrectly because of an error by his transcriptionist. (Which, bully for him for having a transcriptionist, something even we don't have over here.) He now claims that Walker said, "A vote for Ronald Reagan meant limited government, you know, smaller government, lower taxes..." and included a short video clip that begins with the quote, somewhat truncated.

"[A]n excerpt from that interview which seemed insignificant at the time that has gotten a lot of attention from liberal blogs today," Hawkins wrote, by way of explaining why he was double-checking the tape of his already-published interview with the governor just now.

It's impossible to tell what was said before that point in the audio clip and weird that Hawkins omitted it. His original transcript and story remain uncorrected. The Walker administration never offered any comment, not even to say that the governor had been misquoted.

[Photo credit: AP]