In an amusingly appropriate response to the Washington Post's breathless revelation that Mitt Romney hazed a classmate while in high school, John Nolte of Big Hollywood fired back with, "DOES WAPO KNOW OBAMA SHOVED A LITTLE GIRL?"

But did he really?  The story that Nolte cites from Obama's 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father, is no more believable than anything else in that fanciful tome.

In Dreams, Obama reflects on his own first days as a 10-year-old at his Hawaiian prep school, a transition complicated by the presence of "Coretta," the only other black student in the class.  When the other students accuse Obama of having a girlfriend, Obama shoves Coretta and insists that she leave him alone.  Although "his act of betrayal" buys him a reprieve from the other students, Obama understands that he "had been tested and found wanting."

Like virtually all the racial melodramas in Dreams, this one smacks of willful contrivance.  Like many of them, this one bubbles up from the imagination of Bill Ayers, Obama's muse and co-author, and is no more true than the story of Obama's famed dog eating.

In his 1997 book, A Kind and Just Parent, Ayers tells of a useful reading assignment from the 1992 book, The Kind of Light That Shines on Texas, by black author Reginald McKnight.  The passage in question deals with the travails of Clint, the first black student in a newly integrated school, who tries to distance himself from Marvin, the only other black boy in the school.

"Can you believe that guy?" Clint tells a white student. "He's like a pig or something.  Makes me sick."  Upon reflection, Clint thinks, "I was ashamed.  Ashamed for not defending Marvin and ashamed that Marvin even existed."  Sound familiar?

These obvious parallels might have seemed mere coincidence had not friendly Obama biographer David Remnick found the little black girl at Punahou -- a real girl, not a composite -- whom he identifies as "Joella Edwards."  The difference, Remnick admits without understanding its consequences, is that "Barry never rejected Joella."  Au contraire, as Joella gushes, "He was my knight in shining armor."

Say what you will about prankster Mitt Romney, but he never contracted with a terrorist to make up stuff about him.  He never had to.  The Washington Post was all too willing to do the job.