the big lie 101

[Welcome all Larry Elder listeners. Be sure to watch the Big Lie video clips. And of course, check out the blog if you have time.]

the big lie defined

"...in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility."
                                             ---Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf.

The antiwar left, in an ironic twist, has perpetrated a Big Lie by claiming that President Bush used a Big Lie about WMD to lead America into war with Iraq.

Better minds and better writers have plowed this turf, so begin here:

John Podhoretz: Among the many distortions, misrepresentations, and outright falsifications that have emerged from the debate over Iraq, one in particular stands out above all others. This is the charge that George W. Bush misled us into an immoral and/or unnecessary war in Iraq by telling a series of lies that have now been definitively exposed.

What makes this charge so special is the amazing success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over again by evidence and argument alike. In this it resembles nothing so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened, blown up, or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters, this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what.

Also: Big Lie Democrats.

who is spreading it and why

It began with the far left (Michael Moore, MoveOn.org etc), but has seeped into the mainstream of the Democrat party as the 2006 elections approach. Beginning in October 2005, the Democrat party leadership began a coordinated effort to convince the American public that Bush was/is dishonest. The motive is to gain political power. It has worked to a disturbing degree.

the democrat plot

In November 2003, the Democrat Party leadership got caught redhanded plotting to politicize intelligence -- a memo was left unprotected on the Senate website and some enterprising Republican staffer exposed it. He was fired.

Had this been a Republican scheme, it would have been a scandal and the staffer lionized. See Smoking Gun memo for details.

why aren't the news media calling them on this lie?

In some cases they are. Tim Russert sucker punched Ted Kennedy by putting a pro-war quote on screen, letting Kennedy denouce it, then telling him that the quoted speaker was John Kerry. But overall, the lie serves the bias of the Washington Post/New York Times/CNN axis and their efforts to weaken Bush.

why is "bush lied" a lie?

Mountains of evidence and simple logic. See the other Big Lie sections for the evidence. Logically, you'd have to believe that Bush persuaded Britain's Tony Blair to lie with him, and that both thought no one would notice the missing WMD as they ran for reelection in the year after the liberation. Christopher Hitchens does a thorough thrashing of the argument.

big lie corollaries

There are many. Here are some:

  • the liberation of Iraq was exclusively about WMD
  • that Bush claimed Iraq was an "imminent threat" (he actually said the opposite)
  • Saddam Hussein posed no threat to the US and the west because no stockpiles of weapons were found
  • Saddam Hussein had no connection to terrorism
  • Bush/Cheney/Rice claimed a connection between Saddam and 9/11
  • that Saddam had no WMD in the late 1990s
  • that Iraq is another Vietnam and that no good has come from liberating it

On the last point, Iraqi weapons inspector Bill Tierney observed:

On the post-war weapons hunt, the arrogance and hubris of the intelligence community is such that they can’t entertain the possibility that they just failed to find the weapons because the Iraqis did a good job cleaning up prior to their arrival. This reminds me of the police chief who announced on television plans to raid a secret drug factor on the outskirts of town.

At the time appointed, the police, all twelve of them, lined up behind each other at the front door, knocked and waiting for the druggies to answer, as protocol required. After ten minute of toilet flushing and back-door slamming, somebody came to the front door in a bathrobe and explained he had been in the shower. The police took his story at face value, even though his was dry as a bone, then police proceeded to inspect the premises ensuring that the legal, moral , ethnic, human, and animal rights, and also the national dignity, of the druggies was preserved. After a search, the police chief announced THERE WERE NO STOCKPILES of drugs at the inspected site. Anyone care to move to this city?

the plame/wilson/libby lie

According to Bush critics, he was so desperate to attack Iraq (for oil, to settle a score with Saddam, to make Haliburton rich, to honor his Christian calling, etc.) he ignored information contradicting the case for war. When heroic Joe Wilson spoke up, the White House organized a smear campaign to ruin truth-teller Wilson and his CIA wife. This lie gets its own section.

why is this section necessary?

Yes, it's tiresome treading over the same stale material. But Democrats have demonstrated a willingness to spread lies, despite the nakedness and artlessness of their efforts. But unless Big Lies are refuted, they chance becoming conventional wisdom.

We cannot let it pass.