This week’s latest Susan (I Can’t Keep My Stories Straight) Rice scandal is so hot, so damaging to left-wing politics that, as a courtesy to sponsors,

bosses and its gullible readers, the leftist Los Angeles Times had refused to print one word on it — until this morning.  Under pressure, it ran a meaningless, defensive blurb.

The newspaper’s truth-proof theory is:

If you don’t post a scandal story, it never happened.

Which brings us to Culver City’s sometimes mysterious lady in the Congress, U.S. Rep. Karen (I See No Evil Here) Bass.

Ms. Bass, a stranger hereabout, visits Culver City less often than Mr. Putin or Mr. Lincoln. I digress.

This morning Ms. Bass roared out of the starting blocks with a robust – if skinny – defense of the helplessly-scandal-scarred Ms. Rice who seems to regard truthfulness as a dreaded disease.

Following a lengthy, minute-long, self-conducted probe, Ms. Bass reached the following conclusion:

Trump has underestimated us. We will not be distracted or fooled. We #StandWithSusan & call for a #TrumpRussia investigation. – https://twitter.com/RepKarenBass/status/849750369429327873

Accusations against Susan Rice are obstructive and a distraction to take away from #Trumprussia investigation. #StandWithSusan – https://twitter.com/RepKarenBass/status/849748383078264832

• Hussein Obama’s troubled national security advisor stepped in it again a few months ago, but it took until this week for the truth to emerge.

On behalf of America’s favorite stealth spy, Mr. Obama, Ms. Rice evidently was behind the unmasking of Trump Team members in transcripts of calls with Russian officials.

In March, she testified she “knew nothing about this.”

Oops.

On Monday, reliable media reported she did indeed reveal the names of Trump people, the better to build a faux scandal tying President Trump to Russian efforts to tip the November election.

By Tuesday, Ms. Rice conveniently had massaged her March denial. She told friendly MSNBC that Land o’Goshen, for heaven’s sakes, someone as honest as she is, would not unmask anyone’s identity “for any political purposes.”

Oh, so you would unmask, but only for purity reasons?

Even casual observers will recall that Ms. Rice lied her way into the history books at the peak of the 2012 election. After four Americans were slaughtered in Benghazi, she repeatedly lied on Mr. Obama’s re-election behalf. It wasn’t that B. Hussein and Hillary failed to protect the victims, she said. A Muslim video set off the attackers, she lied, knowingly repeating the phony claim in numerous television interviews.

Ms. Ruce receives a grade of A for consistency.