Letters to the Editor
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Believing the Neo-Cons
An article in the Guardian speaks of millions of Whitehouse e-mails that were lost in 2003, just at the beginning of Iraq invasion (linked below). Can you imagine the hew and cry from the so-called "vast right-wing conspiracy" had this happened with Clinton? Few, if any, are complaining now...
There is no great secret to the Neo-Con way of history and remembering: you're with us or you're against us. They are authoritarian and belligerent, avoid taking responsibility for mistakes and the most shrill and thin skinned of accusers. Accuracy and thoroughness have little value other than when facts are cherry picked to anchor a narrative.
So it is with memory in general. They repress it when it comes to their own failures (which are staggering in number and range) or access it selectively to rationalize or aggrandize their decisions. This is part of the reason that the MSM media stars have been generally reluctant to call them on their pasts--they will offend and lose access if they do so.
It may prove harder to sucker the country into an attack on Iran (as GWB himself put it "Fool me once, shame on--shame on you. Fool me--you can't get fooled again."). But then again, they hardly have anything left to lose as they're heading towards the door and they have their men well placed to issue the orders.