Today’s guest post is an analysis of Billy Joel from Chris Morgan. Want to light it? Try to fight it? Let us know in the comments.

We all know the song “We Didn’t Start the Fire” – it’s the Billy Joel song that isn’t “Piano Man” (or “You may be Right” for you Dave’s World fans out there). It’s the song where Mr. Joel sort of talk-sings his way through a bunch of names and things from history. In many ways, it is the spiritual, intelligible forefather to R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as we Know it (And I Feel Fine)” (sing it with me now: Dun duhduh, duhduhduh, Leonard Bernstein!). It also has a bad music video. However, none of that is of particular importance or interest to me. I’m much more interested in what this song says about Billy Joel.

Congratulations New York Times, you’ve outdone yourselves.

Back in 2005, the Gray Lady published two spectacularly dumb style pieces: one about how men sometimes enjoy hanging out together, and the other about how women sometimes admire each other. I strongly recommend you read these – to this day, I halfway believe they are practical jokes. Anyway, last week, I would have confidently held these up as the most pointless articles the Times has ever published.

Then came Monday, and columnist Roger Cohen’s sequel to “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

Wow.

This is such a glorious mound of Fail that I don’t know where to begin. It’s like Christmas morning.