4. "WMDWMDWMDWMDWMD—Oh, wait, forget I ever said that." I can hear Chevy Chase leaning over and telling Gilda Radner's Rosanna Rosannadanna that we haven't found them, and Rosanna replying in that whiny-smiley, "Nevermiyyynd."

Over and over we heard, "We know what they have and we know where they have them." Rumsfeld cited this as an "immediate threat" to us. Bush has even glibly dismissed this profoundly grave matter in a public joke.

Upon failure to find the WMD's, the rhetoric shifted to "WMD-related PROGRAMS" and our international credibility fell further. In February or March 2004, at one point the administration tried saying they sought evidence of "intention" to produce WMD's. Evidently they realized that this only further exposed the failures, so this rhetoric quickly died. (I heard it reported on only one day.) What will Bush’s administration bring up next? WMD-related “ideas”? WMD-related “potential”? Or perhaps they’ve learned: “Crap, OK, we were wrong. Let’s just get away from it. Hope the smarter people forget about it and don’t bring it up. It’ll show how wrong we were, and then they’ll start thinking about many other things that this may imply. And we definitely don’t want people thinking.”

"Oh, hey, I have an idea: let's start talking as if the main thing, or for that matter, the only thing we ever cared about was getting rid of Saddam. That lets us throw up a smokescreen:

'WELL, WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE SADDAM STILL IN POWER?'

This has to rank among the Top Ten most ignorant responses ever, as if any free person wants Saddam in charge. This has all the intellectual value of the clichéd prosecutor's trick question: "Mr. Smith, are you still beating your wife?" Most people won't know how to respond, and thus some of the President's defenders slander as "unpatriotic" anyone who still expects Mr. Bush to take responsibility or to merely acknowledge his errors. Too many of us don't understand the dynamics of propaganda, so many won't recognize this gambit. But the illogic of this question-cum-accusation can satisfy some otherwise intelligent and sincere people who simply need to perceive America as always good and right, as well as those parties who focus more on maintaining a pretense of our moral high ground in invading Iraq, or who for whatever reason need to believe President Bush is receptive to remaining broadly and objectively informed, and that he is intellectually competent, emotionally mature, and morally enlightened enough to process the information.

So we have a two-pronged deception.
   1: Gloss over the WMD insistence.
   2: Brand anyone who dares expect us to show some integrity and honesty in this as "unpatriotic" or even
       a Saddam-supporter.
This does seem to work among Mr. Bush's team and some of his more vocal supporters. Indeed, many otherwise honest and truly patriotic people simply do not have enough training in critical thinking skills to recognize this administration's vacuous propaganda for its true nature.

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” Theodore Roosevelt “History, we don’t know. We’ll all be dead.” George W. Bush   Intro   Election 2004 Introduction 1   I Yam What I Yam 2a People Die for Mr. Bush's Mistakes. He Laughs It Off 2b Supplement: Mr. Bush Laughs It Off 3a   Mr. Bush's Religious Rhetoric: The Uncaped Crusader 3b   Mr. Bush's Religious Rhetoric: Ripping Off Jesus 4   WMDWMDWMDWMDWMD—Oh, Never Mind, Forget I Ever Said WMD 5   President Bush: Saddam Tried to Kill My Dad 6   President Bush's Real World Patriot Games 7   In Mr. Bush's Own Words: "Major League Asshole" 8a   Responsibilty? Accountability? The Buck Stops Somewhere Else 8b Supplement: Responsibilty and Dodge Ball 9a   Forgive Osama? Love Saddam? You CRAZY, Jesus? 9b   Supplement: Christian Nonresistance 10   Democracy? Not on This Watch. Undo the Presidential Records Act 11   The Arsonist Owns the Fire Truck 12   Environment 13   Mr. Bush's Taunt: "Bring It On!" 14   Conclusions 15   Update 5/5/04     Please sign my Election Site Dreambook (and visit my other sites as well). And read others' comments.