The June 2006 issue of Harper's Magazine has an excellent essay entitled STABBED IN THE BACK!: The past and future of a right-win myth by Kevin Baker (no link available yet). In it Mr. Baker writes...
"Every state must have its enemies. Great powers must have especially monstrous foes. Above all, these foes must arise from within, for national pride does not admit that a great nation can be defeated by any outside force. That is how, though its origins are elsewhere, the stab in the back has become the sustaining myth of modern American nationalism. Since the end of World War II it has been the device by which the American right wing has both revitalized itself and repeatedly avoided responsibility for its own worst blunders. Indeed, the right has distilled its tale of betrayal into a formula: Advocate some momentarily popular but reckless policy. Deny culpability when that policy is exposed as disastrous. Blame the disaster on internal enemies who hate America. Repeat, always making sure to increase the number of internal enemies..."
What is interesting about this process is, not so much that it has emerged after things have gone so terribly wrong in Iraq, but that it was built in to the Republican narrative since the terrorist attacks on September 11. From that day, every concern advanced by the Democrats about the build-up to war, every criticism of Bush and the Republican Congress handling of security issues and their relentless drive to undermine our constitutional protections has been met with hysterical claims that we Democrats and lefties HATE America and are joining with it's enemies to destroy it. This is the same narrative that was trotted out as eastern Europe fell to Communist regimes after WWII. The same bludgeon against the anti-war lefties as South Vietnam fell and the same now as Iraq and Afghanistan become a monstrous debacle.
Another word for it is scapegoating:
"In scapegoating, feelings of guilt, aggression, blame and suffering are transferred away from a person or group so as to fulfill an unconscious drive to resolve or avoid such bad feelings. This is done by the displacement of responsibility and blame to another who serves as a target for blame both for the scapegoater and his supporters. The scapegoating process can be understood as an example of the Drama Triangle concept [Karpman, 1968].
The perpetrator's drive to displace and transfer responsibility away from himself may not be experienced with full consciousness - self-deception is often a feature. The target's knowledge that he is being scapegoated builds slowly and follows events. The scapegoater's target experiences exclusion, ostracism or even expulsion.
In so far as the process is unconscious it is more likely to be denied by the perpetrator. In such cases, any bad feelings - such as the perpetrator's own shame and guilt - are also likely to be denied. Scapegoating frees the perpetrator from some self-dissatisfaction and provides some narcissistic gratification to him. It enables the self-righteous discharge of aggression. Scapegoaters tend to have extra-punitive characteristics [Kraupl-Taylor, 1953].
Scapegoating also can be seen as the perpetrator's defense mechanism against unacceptable emotions such as hostility and guilt. In Kleinian terms, scapegoating is an example of projective identification, with the primitive intent of splitting: separating the good from the bad [Scheidlinger, 1982]. On another view, scapegoaters are insecure people driven to raise their own status by lowering the status of their target [Carter, 1996]."
It's also interesting that George W. Bush is being fitted out for his goat suit by the radical right. One of the major attacks emerging against him from that quarter is that he is a LIBERAL and has betrayed the principals of conservatism. Every fawning peon to Bush from the last 5 years has been conveniently forgotten. His elevation to the godhead of the Conservative cause is now no longer applicable. Never mind that this idiot son was foisted on the country by a radical right slavering for absolute control of every aspect of the government. Never mind that the attack on governance and the resulting failures (9/11, Katrina, Iraq) can be laid on the doorstep of the RNC. No, it's the Liberals fault.
It's time we hammer home exactly who is to blame for everything that has gone wrong since President Gore was denied his office. America was not "stabbed in the back" by some crazed lefties. It was betrayed by the Radical Right of the Republican party who's hatred of New Deal protections and progressive government became a maniacal obsession. To them the Constitution of the United States was a convenient myth to be set aside when the chance came for Real Power.
It's time to put the blame for these Un-American activities exactly where it belongs: The Republican Party of the United States.