I guess I’m going to have to be the one to explain Michael Kinsley’s joke to the guys at NewsMax.

They have this silly article up on their web page:

LA Times Threatens O’Reilly With Secret Service

The Los Angeles Times is slamming Bill O’Reilly – for slamming the Los Angeles Times.

The newspaper has warned the “telephilosopher” to stop his “decapitation fantasies” involving Times editorial page editor Michael Kinsley – or face trouble from the Secret Service.

It all started with a Times editorial urging the shutdown of the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and access to attorneys for detainees.

That set off O’Reilly. During the broadcast of “The Radio Factor with Bill O’Reilly” on May 17, he declared:

“How can they think this way? How can anyone think this way? You know: ‘Shutting down Guantanamo and giving suspected terrorists legal protections would help restore our reputation abroad.'”

Said O’Reilly, “That’s like saying, ‘Well, if we’re nicer to the people who want to kill us, then the other people who want to kill us will like us more.'”

Then he fired off the big gun, saying the paper’s editorial board will “never get it until they [the terrorists] grab Michael Kinsley out of his little house and they cut his head off. And maybe when the blade sinks in, he’ll go, ‘Perhaps O’Reilly was right.'”

The Times counterattacked in a May 24 editorial. Questioning why people the U.S. has liberated from tyranny “don’t love us,” the paper stated, “It doesn’t seem worthy of decapitation to suggest that ghastly stories (not all fabricated by Newsweek) about abuse of prisoners don’t help.”

The Times has long had an ax to grind with Fox News. Much of the paper’s anger no doubt comes from Fox’s coverage of the Times’ last-minute smear job on Arnold Schwarzenegger in the days leading up to the 2003 gubernatorial recall race.

For the moment, O’Reilly is in the liberal paper’s crosshairs, warning: “O’Reilly should be careful. Any further decapitation fantasies could get him in serious trouble with the Secret Service.”

It seems the paper has difficulty distinguishing between a threat and a “fantasy.” And when it comes to actual threats against its employees, the paper may want to check with its lawyers on whom to contact.

The Secret Service deals with threats against the president and vice president, not editorial writers.

Well, no kidding, NewsMax — and Kinsley knows that.

The editorial’s reference to the Secret Service was a joke — one that NewsMax didn’t get. This is clear when you read Kinsley’s joke in context:

Where did The Times’ editorial page get the idea that winning the war on terrorism depends on persuading societies that breed terrorists that they should like us and adopt our values? Actually, this is not some wooly left-wing notion concocted over a joint during a lesbian wedding reception in Santa Monica. It is the cornerstone of the George Bush presidency, according to Bush himself.

In his State of the Union address in January, for instance, Bush said, “In the long term, the peace we seek will only be achieved by eliminating the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of murder. If whole regions of the world remain in despair and grow in hatred, they will be the recruiting grounds for terror, and that terror will stalk America….”

O’Reilly should be careful. Any further decapitation fantasies could get him in serious trouble with the Secret Service.

Get it? Kinsley was saying that Bush has said the very same things that O’Reilly had criticized Kinsley for saying. Ergo, if O’Reilly was that critical of Kinsley, he would presumably be equally critical of Bush — which could make Bush the next subject of an O’Reilly decapitation fantasy. And that would mean the Secret Service would be involved.

Jokes are never that funny when you have to explain them — but clearly, this one needs to be explained to the guys at NewsMax.

UPDATE: Thanks to Michelle Malkin for the link. I am unaccustomed to defending the L.A. Times. If you want to read a recent post that is more critical of the paper, click here.