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The Bush Lies Marathon, Day 3

Plus: the secret of Rush Limbaugh's success, revealed at last to American liberals

If my lips ain't movin',
I ain't lyin'.

Today's items are a continuation of the lengthy list sent along by reader Rob Johnson, who's started his own blog here.

1) That WMDs went to Syria

2) That everybody fighting occupation forces is a "Saddam supporter" or "Ba'ath remnant"

3) That Iraq was behind the October 2001 anthrax attacks (Ok, that one got exposed pretty quickly, but still...)

4) That cronies and family of Bush aren't personally profiting off the war on Iraq or the war on "terror" (although that's not the main reason for the war, just a little side benefit)

5) That there are links between Venezuelan President Chavez and Al Qaeda.

6) That Bush is seeking a viable Palestinian state.

7) That the U.S. cares about whether Saddam "gassed his own people" beyond propaganda purposes.

8) That the U.S. cares about mass graves beyond propaganda purposes.

9) That Bush was going to get Osama "dead or alive"

10) That Iraqi cooperation with U.N. inspectors could have prevented the war.

Why Bush's Lies Stick, part 2

Because they get thrown at the wall a lot, and because American media always duly regurgitate them.

Consider two of the more interesting links posted yesterday at Cursor: first the news that a former Bush intelligence loyalist, Rand Beers, has joined the chorus of voices accusing the Bushmen of misfeasance, malfeasance, and plain lying in the war on terror; second, the recap of a recent University of Maryland poll indicating that a third of Americans believe the US actually did find WMD in Iraq, and 22 percent think the Iraqis used chemical and biological weapons in the war. And those numbers pale beside previous poll numbers on the share of Americans who believe Saddam was involved in 9/11--between 40 and 50 percent, as I recall.

So who is winning the war for American hearts and minds? Well, think about it. In the absence of any consistent, prominent skeptical voices among "newsmakers," much less journalists themselves, political claims aren't measured by their truth value but by the shelf space they consume. Goebbels wrote that a big lie could always be driven home through sheer repetition, but the Bush administration has been spectacularly successful at kiting big lies and littles lies alike.

Who to blame? Another vast right-wing conspiracy? Yes and no. As Bill Kristol has joked repeatedly, the cabal is right out in the open for the most part. And so is its media branch, a Bermuda triangle bounded at the perimeters by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge. These three and their progeny have done a superb job of beating up anyone who tries to besmirch the motives and actions of the neocons in power. But they could never have done so without the Democratic party establishment serving the dual role of punching bag and fellow traveler.

People need to look past the Democrat-bashing shtick of these guys to see the root of their fairly plain, if coded, agenda. They aren't really after the Democrats (who, after all, are mostly indistinguishable from Republicans in matters of governance); the hard right is out to see to it that the Democratic party never reconnects with the right's real enemy, which is the people.

So if you're one of those deluded souls who's joined the recent chorus hectoring the Democrats to find their own Rush Limbaugh, give it up. American left-liberals of the sort who still gather around the Democratic party can't do it. And here is why, the secret of Rush Limbaugh's success in a nutshell: The American right's knights of punditry are willing to go directly after their real enemies, a class that includes everyone who threatens to stand in the way of the untrammeled tyranny of the market. The American left is absolutely, constitutionally incapable of turning around and calling out its own enemies (those who stand for the untrammeled tyranny of money), because the institutional voices on behalf of left-liberalism in America are... institutional voices.

None of this means the left couldn't have its own take-no-prisoners radio wrestler, but it does mean the Democrats won't be spawning one. And if he or she ever emerges, the Democrats will be nearly as horrified as the Republicans.

Posted by Steve Perry at June 17, 2003 11:26 AM

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