Yeah, yeah, I know that Ben Bradlee has retired from the Washington Post, but he is still revered there and his spirit still animates the place. Therefore it is surelyimportant news that I have been informed, on good authority, and even confirmed by the sister of the girl who was victimized by being shown the piece of paper in question — in other words, there will be no retraction needed from THIS report — that, in Third Grade, Ben Bradlee wrote a dirty limerick on a piece of construction paper and showed it to a girl named Marybeth. It made her cry. Tragically, the long-term effect was that it warped Marybeth’s morals so badly that she had to start using birth control at age 13 — and, worse, she had to pay for it herself! Because she had to use her baby-sitting money for that purpose instead of being able to save it to pay for college, she was forced to work as a secretary instead of becoming CEO of a non-profit dedicated to promoting compulsory unionization of sex workers. Secret Service agents have therefore been able to continue underpaying the ladies on 14th Street in Washington DC. But at least one of the sex workers ended up okay: The Obama campaign paid her a nice sum for her life story. Her name is Julia.