TPM in making a point about Pete Hoekstra pointed me to this article by Kevin Baker in Harper's entitled
Stabbed in the Back: The Past and Future of a Rightwing Myth. Below is a brief summary. I don't think I can do any better than Baker, so read the article for youself.
Keep in mind this is what we can look forward to and apparantly truth alone is not enough to counter it. Keep this in mind when the GOP tells you the NY Times commits treason everytime it publishes an article exposing erosions of civil liberties, or when someone asks why Lamont over Joe "we criticize the president at our peril" Lieberman. The ground work is being laid.
It is a history of the GOP "stabbed in the back" strategy. The simplified version of the origin of the theory is after losing World War I, some Germans militarists blamed their loss on being stabbed in the back by the civilian government and that this theory was adopted by the Nazi's and transformed into Jews in the government stabbed the Germans in the back.
The Harper's article discusses the origins of the myth and its adoption by the GOP's right wing beginning as far back as Yalta. Even as a young teen, I recognized the historical parallel in how some were claming the United States were blaming the loss in Vietnam on liberals, hippies, Democrats. Like many others, I fully expect Iraq to be substituted for Vietnam with bloggers being substituted for hippies in this story of how Iraq really wasn't a rightwing FUBAR nightmare. However, I never appreciated how long the GOP wingnuts have been using this myth and how versatile it is until I read Baker's article.