Blast from Past: Rove and Rather in '72

Today's winner of America's funniest video: A long-haired Karl Rove shows a "Generation of Peace" bumper sticker to once-and-future-enemy Dan Rather in 1972.

A tip of the Bush Beat fedora to friend Jeremy Voas for this trip in the Wayback Machine. Go to YouTube — no, not for the latest farting in public video — but for a flatulent blast in Uncle Walter Cronkite's January 18, 1972, CBS news broadcast.

Cronkite turns to Dan Rather for all the scoop on Nixon's re-election campaign. It's too much to hope for that the young Karl Rove worked for the wonderfully named Committee for the Re-election of the President (CREEP).

But there's a long-haired Rove, ID'd as "GOP College Director," at Republican National Committee headquarters, holding up the sticker (while Nixon is sending the "generation of peace" to die in Vietnam) and telling Rather that the GOP itself can't reach young people but that "young people have to reach young people."

Whoever Rove directly reported to, this video is plenty creepy and much more hilarious than more recent footage of Rove reading Christmas carols.

Don't worry that YouTube or its parent, Google — which are threatened by a flood of lawsuits and threats for posting videos — will have to yank the Rove-Rather video. CBS and YouTube have a deal in place.