The Big Lie tactic is a propaganda device often associated with the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Simply, it's this:
If those in authority repeat an outrageous falsehood over and over, and there is no countervailing voice exposing this big lie to the public, or if that voice is censored by the media, the big lie is likely to be believed.
The Big Lie still works, and rather well according to the New York Times. Buried deep in an assessment of Iraq War Withdrawl is the proof:
"... 33 percent of all Americans, including 40 percent of Republicans and 27 percent of Democrats, say Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001."911 had nothing to do with Iraq, and Iraq had nothing to do with 911. But that's the power of the Big Lie. ~ Spinboydotcom
Americans Feel Military Is Best at Ending the WarBy STEVEN LEE MYERS and MEGAN THEE
September 10, 2007
Americans trust military commanders far more than the Bush administration or Congress to bring the war in Iraq to a successful end, and while most favor a withdrawal of American troops beginning next year, they suggested they were open to doing so at a measured pace, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.
On the eve of what is sure to be a contentious debate on Iraq, the results underscored the benefits to the White House of entrusting the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, to make the case that an increase in American forces this year had been successful enough to continue into next year.
Today, General Petraeus will appear on Capitol Hill along with the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, in what has become the most anticipated testimony from a military commander in decades.
The poll found that both Congress, whose approval rating now stands at its lowest level since Democrats took control from the Republicans last year, and Mr. Bush enter the debate with little public confidence in their ability to deal with Iraq. Only 5 percent of Americans — a strikingly low number for a sitting president’s handling of such a dominant issue — said they most trusted the Bush administration to resolve the war, the poll found. Asked to choose among the administration, Congress and military commanders, 21 percent said they would most trust Congress and 68 percent expressed most trust in military commanders.
That is almost certainly why the White House has presented General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker as unbiased professionals, not Bush partisans. President Bush has said for years that decisions about force levels should be left to military commanders, although the decision to send an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq this year and keep them there was not uniformly supported by military leaders. It was primarily made in the White House, and specifically by the president in his role as commander in chief.
Some Democrats took issue with the characterization of General Petraeus as operating free of influence from the administration, suggesting that they would like to diminish his credibility heading into days of intense sparring over how much more time Mr. Bush’s strategy for Iraq should be given.
“I don’t think he’s an independent evaluator,” Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said on “Fox News Sunday.” A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, responded sharply, saying, “Attacking him in this way is reprehensible.”
Still, the poll showed how difficult the White House’s task of sustaining support for an unpopular war had become. There is a deepening disillusion over the war’s course and its purpose, with the highest numbers of Americans, 62 percent, saying that the war was a mistake, and 59 percent saying that it was not worth the loss of American lives and other costs.
A majority, 53 percent, said they did not think that Iraq would ever become a stable democracy. Still more, 70 percent, said they did not think the Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, was doing all it could to bring stability.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans said the United States should reduce its troops in Iraq now or withdraw them. Asked if a timetable should be established for a 2008 withdrawal, a position many Democrats in Congress have advocated, 64 percent favored doing so.
But the sense that the country has come to a clear conclusion that the war should come to a swift end was undercut to a degree by responses to a number of other questions.
The poll’s results encapsulated sentiments that at times seemed contradictory, highlighting the complexity of a debate over how to win a war that has had few easy answers. As a result, Americans reflected a nuanced concern about the consequences of a withdrawal, even as they fervently expressed hope for one. The consequences of leaving Iraq hastily or prematurely has been one of the administration’s recurrent themes of late.
Presented with three possible plans, the poll found that Americans favored a measured approach, with 56 percent supporting reducing troops in Iraq, but leaving some in place to train Iraqi forces, fight terrorists and protect American diplomats.
Twenty-two percent favored a complete withdrawal in the next year, and 20 percent favored keeping the same number of troops “until there is a stable democracy in Iraq.”
Just under half favored a decrease or withdrawal of all troops even if the result was “more mass killings” among Iraq’s ethnic groups. The proportion favoring reductions or a withdrawal dropped to 30 percent if Iraq would become a base of operations for terrorists as a result.
The poll was conducted nationwide by telephone from Tuesday through Saturday and included 1,035 adults. The margin of sampling error for all adults is plus or minus three percentage points.
The findings suggested that both parties were paying a price for the way they have handled the war. Six in 10 Americans said in the poll that administration officials deliberately misled the public in making a case for the war;
33 percent of all Americans, including 40 percent of Republicans and 27 percent of Democrats, say Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.The poll found that the edge held by the Democrats this year on the issue had diminished, perhaps because of the inability of the party’s leadership in Congress to push through measures that would restrain Mr. Bush or mandate any steps toward ending the war.
What was an 18-point advantage in May for the Democrats on the question of which party is more likely to make the right decisions about the war has fallen to a 10-point advantage, 42 percent to 32 percent for the Republicans.
The Democrat-led Congress also enters the debate in a weakened position. The popularity of the current Congress reached a new low, the poll found, less than a year after the Democrats regained control of the House and Senate. Only 23 percent of Americans approved of the job lawmakers were doing.
While Congress has rarely scored highly in the public mind, the current Congress’s rating is now lower than that of its predecessor in the months before the election swept the Republican Party from power.
“I think both parties will make the wrong decisions,” one of those polled, John Cross, a lawyer and a Democrat from Greensboro, N.C., said in a follow-up telephone interview yesterday. “I just think they’ll make them differently.”
With barely 16 months to go in his presidency, Mr. Bush has a popularity rating that hovers nears its historic lows, with only 30 percent approving of his handling of the job and 64 percent disapproving. That level — essentially the reverse of his ratings when the war began in 2003 — has remained roughly the same since Mr. Bush announced in January the increase in American troops that became known as the surge.
Only 26 percent approved of Mr. Bush’s handling of Iraq and of foreign policy generally, while only one in four Americans think the country is generally on the right track.
Politically speaking, the poll indicated that Americans favored a flexible approach to Iraq as opposed to unbending positions.
That could prove significant in this month’s debate in Washington and in next year’s presidential election. A vast majority, 94 percent, said that sharing a candidate’s view on the war was important or very important.
And 71 percent said flexibility in deciding on a withdrawal was more important than demanding either an unqualified victory (Mr. Bush’s position) or an immediate withdrawal (that of much of the antiwar Democratic base).
Over the summer, perhaps with such sentiment in mind, Democratic candidates and lawmakers in Congress have softened their demands for a hard and fast schedule for pulling out.
