If you want to see the media’s ability to “frame” a story according to its handy all-purpose and supremely intellectually lazy template, you need look no further than the opening remarks by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in this clip, an interview with not-all-that-strange bedfellows Barney Frank and Ron Paul.

You’d have a hard time finding two lawmakers here in Washington farther apart on the political spectrum than Democratic congressman Barney Frank and Republican congressman Ron Paul. But now they are teaming up big time to call for substantial cuts in U.S. military spending.

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At first blush, the artificial construct Blitzer is positing seems to make sense in a crude, reductionist sort of way — Frank, happy holder of what is apparently a lifetime sinecure in Brookline and Newton, Mass., and Ron Paul of Texas, aka the crazy old uncle in the attic: left vs. right, happily coming together in the pages of the Huffington Post for a brilliant display of bipartisanship over the issue of funding for the military. And indeed, they helpfully provide the “conflict” — which every good narrative must have — in the first paragraph of their piece:

As members of opposing political parties, we disagree on a number of important issues. But we must not allow honest disagreement over some issues to interfere with our ability to work together when we do agree.

By far the single most important of these is our current initiative to include substantial reductions in the projected level of American military spending as part of future deficit reduction efforts.

The fact is, though, in this case Frank and Paul– despite their political affiliations — are not in opposition at all, and never have been. Paul admits as much when he notes that he’s always looking for opportunities to bring “progressive Democrats and conservative-libertarian” types together. Paul is a libertarian, not a conventional “conservative” as the term is generally understood, and has been a consistent voice against American military actions overseas, most notably the war in Iraq.

Wolf does get a few good licks in, such as when he reminds Paul (around 6:10 on the tape) that a little something called Sept. 11 intervened between candidate Bush’s non-interventionist foreign policy position and his later action against terrorism — a good point to which Paul blinks, stammers and apparently advocates unwavering adherence to campaign boilerplate.

But, at root, the entire premise of the segment — look! lions lying down with lambs! — is false, a sham battle between two men who, for alliance of convenience if not of conscience reasons, have made common cause.

Fun to watch the sausage being made, huh?