shakran

I don't think they believe that for one second. Their mantra is, repeat it often enough and it becomes true. That's why we have Rumsfeld claiming he never said stuff that he actually said. If he repeats that enough, it will be true because that's what people will remember. In the current political climate, you can lie and get away with it as long as it's not a lie about sex.

Except that it was not a mistake. They knew DAMN well that there was no solid evidence that Hussein had WMD's but they told us he did anyway. Bush knew DAMN well in the state of the union that the African yellowcake story was bullshit, yet he told us anyway. That's not a mistake, that's deliberate deception. They are now lying because if they do not it will become obvious to even the dumbest and most easilly manipulated among us that they lied before, which will put their administration in jeopardy, and because they know that, without a strong republican school of pirhannas to press the issue as we had when Clinton lied about his affair, they probably won't get called on it until it's far too late to change the results of the election. As I said before, tell the story often enough and the story becomes true in the minds of those you tell it to.

Essentially, Bush & Co. think the american people are stupid sheep who will believe anything they see on TV. They've been proven correct in that belief before - after all, at this time last year 74% of us actually believed the 9/11 terrorists were Iraqi, when in fact none of them were. But Bush alluded to it time after time in speech after speech, and, like the good sheep we were, the vast majority of our nation bought it, even though all the evidence pointed to the contrary.

Bush's people are masterful manipulators of the media - heck look at the speech he gave today. He said the world is safer from terrorism (yet minutes later he extended our sympathy to Madrid after they suffered a devastating terrorist attack), he said the Taliban was destroyed by the US-led invasion of Afghanistan (then why are they gaining power again now that we're paying attention to Iraq?). He even praised France, saying they were an ally in this war on terror (oh really? I wonder if it's still Freedom Toast on Air Force One). They say whatever is convenient to them at the time that they say it and they know full well that many Americans will buy it simply because they said it on TV.

It's the same situation as all those bullshit forwards I'm sure we all get warning us of crap like HIV infected needles in movie theater seats, gang members who drive around with their lights off at night, waiting for someone to flash their lights at them so they can kill them, or forwards telling us to forward the email to 50 people and Bill Gates will pay us a lot of money. All this stuff is complete and utter horseshit, yet the mentality of many is that because it's on the internet, it must be true.

If we truly want a country that is a representative of the people, we need to become truthseekers. That means no more bitching that you're missing your soap opera because the networks have cut to special coverage of something the government is doing. No more complaining that the coverage of the war is interrupting Survivor (as though the war isn't reality television). We need to seek out and actively demand information, because without information we are easilly manipulated. Information is power, and right now, the majority of the American public is powerless.

/rant