NASTY BUT NECESSARY

We hesitate to use the infamous Goering remark about deceitful leaders and the ease with which they're able to mislead a nation into war while denouncing their critics as unpatriotic, not only because it's already been seen many times but because it draws a very nasty comparison between 21st-century America and the Nazi Germany of a former era.

But the Bullshitter-in-Chief has forced us to it with his duplicitous assault yesterday on the patriotism of those who rightly claim he led the United States to war in Iraq on a pack of lies and twisted facts. "It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began," the Bullshitter said, exploiting Veterans Day, no less, to lash out at his critics. "These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will."

So here it is again, from Hitler's onetime second in command, Hermann Goering, as quoted by Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking intelligence officer and psychologist who was granted access to the prisoners held in jail during the war crimes trials at Nuremberg:

Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.

Are Americans finally waking up to their Bullshitter's deceit? According to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll:

64 percent of Americans disapprove of how Bush is handling the war and 60 percent believe it was not worth fighting -- in both cases, the worst numbers for the president since the invasion. The perjury indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who resigned as chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, has revived the issue of the administration's truthfulness in building the case for war, and nearly 3 in 5 voters in the Post-ABC poll do not consider Bush honest.

But there he was, as the Post reports,

[s]tanding before a warehouse full of current and former troops, [where] he spoke under a banner that read "Strategy for Victory" [while] the crowd cheered him exuberantly, especially when he embraced a constitutional amendment to ban the desecration of the American flag -- a proposal he has supported for years but almost never mentions in speeches.

We'll believe the notoriously fickle public has repudiated him once and for all -- something it should have done a year ago in the 2004 presidential election -- when he's either impeached for high crimes or when he voluntarily resigns because of political pressure, neither of which we expect to happen. Until then, comparative exaggeration notwithstanding, Goering's cynicism applies.

-- Tireless Staff of Thousands