Recently, Dick Cheney has given two speeches where he complained about the criticism the administration has been receiving for the “flawed” (read: false) intelligence that was presented as true in the lead up to the war in Iraq. He has said that lawmakers have made the, “most dishonest and reprehensible charges,” and that these are, “cynical and pernicious falsehoods.’

Shall we look at the charges and the way in which the rebut is being presented by Bush, Cheney, et al? First of all, as we now know from some excellent investigative reporting in the Los Angeles Times, the administration was warned that the intelligence that they were using to promote the case for war was faulty at best. The source of this intelligence, named “Curveball” by German Intelligence (was there ever a more appropriate moniker?), was not regarded as reliable. The Germans were shocked to see Curveball’s lies in Bush’s State of the Union speech and repeated in Colin Powell’s presentation before the U.N.

Second, we can now see that those who spoke the truth to power (e.g. Paul O’Neil, Richard Clark) found their personal and professional reputations trashed. The administration sought to relegate them to the dustbin of history. But, they (and others like them) are rising, like Lazarus, from the “dead.” Their words ring true and the Administration are having to put on their backup shoes and distort some more. Of course it won’t work, but, God love ‘em, they’re trying. Dick and W are slicker than deer guts on a gate post, and about as appealing.

For Dick Cheney to say that Congress saw the same intelligence as the Administration is a flat-out lie. As a matter of fact it’s a “cynical and pernicious falsehood.” Neither Congress, nor the U.S. public, heard the caveats about the intelligence. Cheney is guilty of using the theory of “The Big Lie” to defend the indefensible. The Big Lie is a particularly pernicious form of propaganda. It has a very simple 2-part premise: 1. reduce the problem to a simple black and white terms. (We’re good, they’re bad. We’re right, they’re wrong. Saddam and Osama are partners in crime.) 2. repeat over and over.

Based on this, it’s theorized that the public will believe anything you want them to. Here’s an example: if you say over and over that Saddam and Osama are evil (that’s easy, they are) and you keep repeating their names together time after time along with mentioning 9/11, then you can get the majority of Americans to believe that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. Of course, the story isn’t that simple, never is. Saddam and Osama wouldn’t have anything to do with one another. Saddam is a secular Muslim. Osama sees Saddam as apostate. He’d as soon being dealing with W as Saddam. Saddam, for his part, would also rather deal with anyone than Osama.

Because of the repeating of the mantra linking Saddam and Osama in the lead up to the war, the majority of the American public believed that Saddam had something to do with 9/11 and that the highjackers were Iraqis.

The Big Lie is not new; it was the brainchild of Joseph Goebbels. He was the propaganda chief for Adolf Hitler. Through the mists of time (and our own propaganda) Goebbels’ dis-information machine is viewed now as rather heavy handed. Au contraire mes amis, Herr Goebbels could be quite subtle. If little Joey Goebbels were speaking to the American Enterprise Institute (instead of Darth Vader Cheney) he might say something like the following:

“[The] ability to believe is rather weak in some circles . . . [t]hey may trust more in pure cold reason than a glowing idealistic heart. Our so-called intellectuals do not like to hear this, but it is true anyway. They know so much that in the end they do not know what to do with their wisdom. They can see the past, but not much of the present, and nothing at all of the future. Their imagination is insufficient to deal with a distant goal in a way such that one already thinks it achieved.

They were also unable to believe in . . . victory . . . They are as little able today to believe in the greatness of our . . . future. They perceive only what they can see, but not what is happening and what will happen.

That is why their carping criticisms generally focus on laughable trivialities. Whenever some unavoidable difficulty pops up, the kind of thing that always happens, they are immediately inclined to doubt everything and to throw the baby out with the bath water. To them difficulties are not there to be mastered, but rather to be surrendered to.

One cannot make history with such quivering people. They are only chaff in God’s breath. Thankfully, they are only a thin intellectual or social upper class, particularly [here]. They are not an upper class in the sense that they govern the nation, but rather more a fact of nature like the bubbles of fat that always float on the surface of things.

Today, they seek to give good advice to [us] from abroad. We do not have to ask them for it. They focus all their energies on the small problems that always are there, complain about the cost and believe that crises and unavoidable tensions are on the way. They are the complainers who never tire of bringing [us] before the so-called court of world opinion. In the past they always found willing and thankful followers. Today, they only have a few backward intellectual Philistines in their camp.

The people want nothing to do with them. These Philistines are the 8/10 of one percent of the . . . people who have always said “no”, who always say “no” now, and who will always say “no” in the future. We cannot win them over, and do not even want to. . . They always say “no” as a matter of principle.

One does not need to take them all that seriously. They do not like us, but they do not like themselves any better. Why should we waste words on them? They are always living in the past and believe in success only when it has already happened, but then waste no time in claiming credit for it. The people want nothing to do with these intellectual complainers.”

That is from a speech that Goebbels actually gave on New Year’s Eve 1938. As you can see, he had a lighter hand than Cheney. But, it all adds up to the same thing: the Big Lie lives. However, the other thing that is happening now is that the people have awoken and looking at the emperor are pointing saying, “He’s got no clothes!” We are witness to history. The party’s over for the Big Lie and the liars who told it.