Reading the New York Times' massive front-page story Sunday on the U.S. military's propaganda efforts, we were charmed by these ideas generated by the now-infamous "Lincoln Group," sadly left on the drawing board:

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Lincoln proposed variations of the satirical paper "The Onion," and an underground paper to be called "The Voice," documents show. And it planned comedies modeled after "Cheers" and the Three Stooges, with the trio as bumbling wannabe terrorists.

The latter, clearly, offers the most intriguing possibilities, including the image of a terrorist slapping his nose up and down and saying "nyuck-nyuck-nyuck" after a car bomb explodes early.

If it sounds like the Lincoln Group is the "Stripes" of information warfare, it may be because its founders -- Christian Bailey,30, and Paige Craig, 31 -- are more young-men around-town than strategists, well-known to Washington's under-40 media-government-nexus as regulars at the infamous soirees of former Washington hostess Jennifer 8. Lee. Over the past year or so Craig and Bailey -- apparently flush with the first blush of Pentagon cash -- have baffled their friends with vague descriptions of what they did, exactly. No one ever suspected they were masterminding an incendiary, controversial PR campaign intended to star Osama bin Moe. One acquaintance said the group decided that Craig and Bailey maybe had something to do with trucks.

Military's Information War Is Vast and Often Secretive [NYT]