Lies, lies and more lies

Remember how we all laughed when Hillary blamed Bill's Monica problem on a vast right wing conspiracy? Well, nobody is laughing now, especially not Shirley Sherrod. That's because there really is a vast right wing conspiracy, and Ms. Sherrod came very close to being it's latest victim.

In the space of 48 hours Ms. Sherrod was accused of bigotry, fired for it, then cleared of the charge, and ended up getting a personal apology from the President. It would be safe to say she had an interesting week.

This all started when a lower life form named Andrew Breitbart used his blog to distribute a heavily doctored video of a speech by Ms. Sherrod that made her look like a bigot. Because of blogs, tweets, facebook, and cell phone cameras, news, and our reactions to it, change hourly. In no time at all everyone from the NAACP to the President was calling for her firing, which also happened quickly.

Then at least one news operation decided to do it's job and watching the entire speech, interviewing the farmer named in it, and the truth came out. The truth was that Ms. Sherrod was no bigot. It is also true that Breibart is a liar, who was willing to destroy an innocent woman to gain brownie points with the right wing.

This is not the first time the right wing has done this. The truth is that these people will smear anybody and tell any lie to get what they want. They are proof of the Nazi propaganda technique of telling a lie long enough and loud enough until people accept it as truth. That was how they turned Bill Clinton's personal behavior into an impeachable offense, and almost destroyed Shirley Sherrod's life and career.

It was right wing propaganda that got us into the Iraq War. During the buildup to that war, they turned the public in favor of it by convincing it that Saddam Hussien was responsible for the 9-11 attack. They knew it was a lie, but they didn't care. They wanted us to invade Iraq, and if it took a lie to do it, so what?

In 2004 they swift boated John Kerry's presidential bid by lying about his military record. They had to. The truth, which was that Kerry's service was heroic, made Bush's time in the National Guard look wimpy in comparison.

In 2009 they used the big lie to influence the health care debate. It was from them that the belief that the plan included death panels and that health care would be rationed came from. They were so good at it that some members of the House and Senate may lose their jobs because they voted for it.

People have got to realize that they can't take anything the right wing tells them at face value. The same thing goes for FOX News. They will continue to lie to get what they want because it has worked so well for them in the past. It will only end when people wake up and realize they are being lied to. These people have lied before. They will lie again.