Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

Perhaps so many Americans believe this because they are watching "the number one
show on television" (not CSI: Miami, but Hannity and Colmes). During and after the war,
Sean Hannity excitedly announced the discovery of actual weapons of mass destruction or
things that seemed to be weapons of mass destruction or the items that proved that weapons
of mass destruction were about to be found.
HANNITY: I think the weapons of mass destruction will be found. I don't think we
have any doubt about that. What are we to make ...
COLMES: None whatsoever, Sean.
HANNITY: What are we to make of the reports that they've discovered these large
concentrations of cyanide agent, mustard agents in the Euphrates, and the fact
that our Marines have found these boxes of suspicious white powder, nerve
agent, antidote, Arabic documents on how to engage in chemical warfare?
FOX MILITARY ANALYST LIEUTENANT COLONEL BILL COWAN: Sean, I'm right
there with you. No surprises whatsoever that all these things are being found,
maybe even no surprises that the U.N. inspection team, Hans Blix and company,
had been into some of these places and not found anything ...
COLMES: Colonel, senior defense officials are telling Fox News at this hour that
that white substance found in an industrial plant near Baghdad is not a chemical
weapon.
There was tons of this. Every time I watched Hannity and Colmes, Sean was certain they had
just found the smoking gun. And then someone, in this case, an unusually feisty Colmes,
would update the story with the information that what had, in fact, been found was a box of
Tide.
Or maybe Americans got the impression that we'd already found weapons of mass destruction
because they'd heard it from a high-ranking source in the White House, namely the
President. On May 29 of this year, President Bush said on national television, "We found the
weapons of mass destruction."
It was on Polish national television. The President was in Poland to thank them for
joining Eritrea, Tonga, and the Solomon Islands in the Coalition of the Willing. If it turns out
that the ad ministration deliberately misled Americans and the rest of the world, next time
countries like Tonga might not be so willing lend their support.
There are serious questions about the possible deceptions used to win public support
for the war. It is increasingly clear that the disinformation campaign, particularly regarding