Alternative History

Digby has an amazing post up about the Big Lie Theory. Here's a precis of it if you're unaware:

In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility ... it would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.

Digby goes on to document how, for two years, leading right up to the election, day after day, Bush continued to insist that we went to war because Saddam defied the UN Security Council by refusing to allow weapons inspectors back into the country, which is patently false. The Security Council didn't give any authorization to go to war; the coalition did not get a second resolution. The weapons inspectors were allowed back in. And yet Bush created this alternative history, unquestioned, for two years. History is written by the winners, indeed.

When the "Deep Throat" revelations came out recently, it amazed me that so many Republicans rushed to Nixon's defense, even some that didn't work for him. It didn't matter that the disclosure of Mark Felt was simply an addition to the historical record; these guys saw their chance to re-fight Watergate, screaming that the resignation of Nixon led to every murder in the whole of Southeast Asia during the 70s, and how dare these blood-on-their-hands librul haters take down this great President. I thought the public record and public opinion on Watergate was pretty well established. But that didn't matter.

It seems to me that most Democrats wouldn't go out of their way to defend Lyndon Johnson on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. I certainly wouldn't. The incident didn't happen, and the Johnson Administration trumped it up to reach their goals in Vietnam of deploying more troops and escalating the war. It was wrong, and it ended up bringing down his Presidency.

The point is that Republicans seem far more willing to compromise their ideals to defend other Republicans. They're willing to concoct these alternative histories, push forward Big Lies, and continue to do so even after all the evidence to the contrary is revealed. Such is the state we're in right now. It's really darn near impossible to argue with people who've swallowed the Big Lie, for the reasons stated above. It seems so preposterous that someone would lie that big, about something that important, that they cannot believe the evidence right in front of their faces. Take for example this brief flurry of right-wing blog activity about the Downing Street Memos being fakes, despite Tony Blair and George Bush acknowledging their authenticity at a press conference on June 7. The idea is to make up any kind of excuse, any kind of alternate explanation, to do anything not to accept the Big Lie.

The thing is, they don't even have to accept it. I still have this crazy notion that the majority of Americans, once they get all the facts, will make the right decision. Now that the facts are coming out through the haze, the believers in the Big Lie will have to accept at least one thing: defeat.