Published on Monday, October 4, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
Who Was Right About the "Global Test"- Jefferson or Hitler?
by Thom Hartmann
"...As former Nixon White House counsel John Dean forcefully pointed out in a discussion on my radio program recently, the written lies submitted to Congress by George W. Bush to justify invading Iraq constitute a crime easily worthy of prosecution and impeachment. "Worse than Watergate," was Dean's shorthand pronouncement, as well as the title of the book he wrote about the incident.
"Bush deliberately violated the very authorization that he sought from Congress," Dean said both on the air and in his book, adding that this "was not merely a serious breach of faith with a trusting Congress, but a statutory and constitutional crime." Thus it should surprise nobody that Bush would now rush to change the subject, to surround his lies with the fog of rhetoric about "permission from France." If Republicans lose the House or Senate, he may find himself in a criminal docket. While Kerry didn't mention that the President had committed a High Crime, Bush's advisors knew immediately the danger such a discussion may bring to him. Should Democrats take control of the House or Senate, they could then investigate how Bush's betrayal of our trust has led to the death and maiming of tens of thousands of human beings.
He had to quickly change the topic.
Commentators in the media, noting Bush's distortion of Kerry's words, and how that distortion is now being used so aggressively in Bush campaign ads, glibly quote prizefighter Jack Dempsey's famous line, "The best defense is a good offense." But the quote more likely on the minds of Bush and his handlers comes from the last leader of a major industrial power who led his nation to war on a pretense based in lies.
"Thus we may explain the fact that since 1918 the men who have held the reins of government adopted an entirely negative attitude towards foreign affairs and the business of the State," noted Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf. This was possible, he said, because at least a third of "the masses of our people, whose sheepish docility corresponds to their want of intelligence...just submit to it because they are too stupid to understand."
Confident that a cowed media won't call him on it, and that with enough fog about "French permission" that the American people won't remember Kerry's actual words or the text of Bush's war letter to Congress, the Bush campaign continues their Big Lie strategy. On November 2nd, we'll learn which shall prevail in this election year: The "test" of Jefferson - to "let Facts be submitted to a candid world" - or the tactics of a demagogue trying to hide his own High Crimes with spin and Big Lies.
Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk show.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1004-34.htm
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