There's an idea out there that for the longest time existed purely in theory -- the “too stupid even for NewsBusters” standard. It was like the Higgs boson of progressive media criticism, something we all just assumed existed but had never actually observed, given NewsBusters' seemingly limitless capacity for inanity.

But Mark Finkelstein appears to have provided the first clear proof of its existence, as NewsBusters has unceremoniously dropped from their main page his post speculating that Time magazine designed the World Cup soccer ball on their latest cover to look similar to President Obama's campaign logo.

Finkelstein's post went live on the homepage at 8:23 a.m. EDT, as their archive page clearly shows:

Now take a look at their homepage as of 12:30 p.m. today:

The post still exists (for now) and it still shows up in Finkelstein's archive.

The confirmation of the “too stupid even for NewsBusters” standard follows the discovery earlier this year of the “too false even for NewsBusters” standard, which was observed when the website yanked a post that, somewhat ironically, asked why Reuters yanked an article that falsely claimed backdoor taxes were going to hit the middle class.

Truly this is a red-letter day for the science of mocking right-wing fools.