The story of the year. Give these two reporters an award. No, give them two!

Do Republicans have a counting problem? At the rate he’s going, Tom Cole, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, might wind up a dollar short and a month late come Election Day.

Cole (Okla.) this week e-mailed a fundraising letter, laden with exclamation points, to GOP supporters asking them to join the NRCC’s “Campaign for 16″ — named for, among other things, the number of seats needed to regain the majority and the number of months (he thought) until the election…

“We only need to win back 16 Congressional seats,” Cole declared in his e-mail, and “we have only 16 months in which to make it happen!”

No, Mr. Cole, you don’t have 16 months. Ya barely got 15! Sixteen months from the date you sent your letter, it’ll be Dec. 21, and the ballots will have been cast and counted.

Gasp! You mean in an unofficial email to already-members of the NRCC, Cole actually was off a month in his promotion?! The DCCC jumped on the bashing wagon immediately:

Cole’s enemy combatants over at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee were delighted to intercept the NRCC chairman’s arithmetic-challenged e-mail. “With the NRCC’s new election math, it’s no wonder veteran Republican members are retiring,” DCCC spokeswoman Jennifer Crider said. “We wish Tom Cole and the NRCC luck in their December 21st election efforts.”

Hahaha! That’s so funny! That’s like thinking there’s a President of Canada! Oh, wait…

Only at the end of the WaPo GOP-bash fest do these two ace reporters tell you:

For the record, he said, it was 16 months to Election Day when the NRCC formulated its “Campaign for 16″ strategy.

Yeah…And I’m thinking the email wasn’t written the same afternoon it went out.