President Joe Biden’s “Disinformation Governance Board” is off to inauspicious start. Billed as a “working group” within the Department of Homeland Security to identify and monitor potential online threats to national security, the “DGB” has already proven itself inept at communication. On Sunday, homeland security chief Alejandro Mayorkas admitted on CNN that “we probably could have done a better job of communicating what it does and does not do.” The Wall Street Journal notes that even its abbreviation, “in a twist too implausible for fiction,” is merely “one letter off from KGB.”

Republicans have been quick to denounce the operation as an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.” They point to the vigorous effort of Democrats and their media allies to bury the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 presidential election as, itself, an elaborate disinformation campaign. Now, in another twist too implausible for fiction (to borrow a phrase), one of the lead purveyors of that partisan enterprise, Nina Jankowicz, has been named head of the disinformation board. One might compare her appointment to hiring the town arsonist to lead the fire department.

Mayorkas insists that the board will only monitor malign foreign actors and, in any case, lacks “operational authority or capability.” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley slams Biden as “arguably the most anti-free-speech president since John Adams” — a comparison the beleaguered president might welcome. At least he’s not Jimmy Carter, nyet.