Bush Lied, People Died. Howard Dean, a hopeful Democratic candidate for President, launched a horrible attack on the President of the United States on a far-left radio show by uttering the four words that would seek to define George W. Bush and his handling of a very challenging war. It was a bumper sticker, a mantra, a taunt. Though most politicians appeal to fear and ad hominem attacks, Austin Bay says this was not the normal political attack:

Howard Dean did something different. In the midst of a very difficult war Dean rhetorically energized and exploited a corrosive lie that provided propaganda cover for America’s mass murdering enemies. That lie would eventually metastasize into a propaganda ditty yoking 9-11 conspiracy theories with the failure to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. Everyone’s heard the brutal bumper sticker jingle that undermined the American war effort: “Bush Lied, People Died.”

In other words, he became a propagandist against his own president, by obscuring key facts by using a catchy rhyme. Bay continues:

The Assad regime has exploited this trope. As news of the attack spread, Assad’s apparatchiks claimed that the chemical attack never occurred. Outright denial might stymie political criticism. Seeding doubt might also deter retaliation, just in case the Trump Administration or Turkey decided to enforce the Obama Administration’s “red line” forbidding Assad’s use of chemical weapons—the line Obama failed to enforce.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson isn't buying Assad's big lie:

“Assad uses chemical weapons because they are not only horrible and indiscriminate. They are also terrifying.

“In that sense he is himself an arch-terrorist, who has caused such an unquenchable thirst for revenge that he can never hope to govern his population again. In that sense he is himself an arch-terrorist, who has caused such an unquenchable thirst for revenge that he can never hope to govern his population again.

“He is literally and metaphorically toxic, and it is time Russia awoke to that fact. They still have time to be on the right side of the argument.”

Glenn Reynolds points out that Johnson "also said British scientists had confirmed that 'sarin or a sarin-like substance' was used in the April 4 attack. Sarin is a nerve agent. Obama didn’t get rid of Assad’s chemical arsenal" as his administration had claimed.

Obama lied, people are dying.

h/t Instapundit

Photo Credit: Kremlin