Awfully presumptuous, I know, to claim to identify Bush's biggest lie when there are so many to choose from (see also the American Progress Action Fund's searchable database of Bush lies, the DNC's top ten Bush lies (with apologies for the google cache link -- they seem not to have it up on their redone website), and Tom Ball's compendium of Bush's Iraq lies).

Better, perhaps, to call this the lie that under,um,lies all of the other lies.

I'm a uniter, not a divider. I refuse to play the politics of putting people into groups and pitting one group against another.

-- George W. Bush, May 1999 [and other times too numerous to mention]

This lie has been exposed so many times that it may seem utterly redundant to those who frequent the liberal blogosphere to examine it again, but in the light of Rove's suggestion last week that liberals are more interested in therapying than punishing America's enemies, that liberals are, well, quite frankly, not quite American, I'm going to revisit territory that is extremely familiar to many of you one more time.

The politics of division that define this administraiton are brilliantly summarized in a comment by Luam over in the Daily Kos thread concerning Chuck Hagel's recent battle of words with Darth Cheney:

At some time, Rove and the gang decided that there were more people with them than against them. So they started treating disagreement as a crime and quelled dissent at the minor cost of alienated people on the other end of the spectrum. As more people find reason to disagree with the administration they are each demonised in turn to keep the remaining troops in like. We have seen it as one by one people resign, leave the party or speak out.

At the risk of covering ground very familiar to most of you, I'm going to retreat for a moment into looking at the history of the fundamental lie of the Bush administration, the idea that they intended to bring Americans together.

"Uniter not a divider" was, of course, perhaps the central theme of Bush's 2000 campaign, repeated so many times our brains began to hurt (little did we know that these headaches were only a warmup) and well-integrated with the snakeoil salesman rhetoric of compassionate conservatism. Bush might be a conservative, but he was one who would bring the country together. He was going to heal the rifts of the Clinton years and represent all Americans.

Of course, the 2000 election left America deeply and bitterly divided, and, despite the bobbleheads' self-important proclamations that we should put it all behind us, Bush's initial months were difficult and far from bringing Americans together. The signature political event of his first months in office was Jim Jeffords' departure from a Republican Party that he found deeply divisive and far from compassionate.

Then, as Frank Luntz would remind us, 9/11 came along and changed everything. Deeply traumatized, Americans rallied around their President in record numbers. That Bush's approval ratings jumped to 90% shortly thereafter shows just how many good liberals (myself included) were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Through none of his own doing, indeed, through a heinous, horrific act perpetrated by America's sworn enemies, barbarians bent on doing our nation grave harm, Bush found himself the leader of a country more united than in a very long time.

It took him barely a year of lies and distortions, of bending the truth, of fixing the facts around his and his cronies' already-developed political ambitions to begin to piss this away. At first, the voices opposing the disastrous intentions of the Bush administration were drowned out by the overwhelming lockstep discouragement of dissent. But gradually, they swelled into a passionate opposition to the ill-conceived War on Iraq, a dangerous diversion from far more critical tasks in the so-called War on Terror. Bush infamously, and, really, rather oddly, dismissed those who dared to question him as "focus groups."

And from this point forth, The Great Uniter, the man who claimed that under his leadership Americans would be brought together as never before, who through great tragedy was given what his political handlers regard as a tremendous gift, has not only divided Americans, but has placed them in two very different categories. It is really a startling divide when you step back for a moment from what you have known all along. Either you are with Us (and Us, of course, doesn't mean America as a whole, but only the Busheviki who claim to represent all of it), or you are with The Terrorists. If you do not agree with those of us who represent Absolute Good, you are on the side of those who represent Absolute Evil.

Which leads us to Rove's recent statements (and those of Congressional blowhards like the vile Rep. Hostettler), and Bush's absolute unwillingness to disassociate himself in any way. Which shouldn't be surprising: they have made great use of talk radio and Fox News demagogues who have been demonizing those with whom they disagree for quite some time. O'Falafel's recent declaration that Air America hosts are "undermining" the "war effort" and should be locked away is only the latest example. Republican politicians, the President included, are more than happy to leave to the well coordinated Mighty Wurlitzer most of the project of demonizing their enemies, and escape the blame thereby. (But, of course, they are more than happy to give them exclusive interviews.) And, also needless to say, the SCLM does not question a situation in which people who suggest that all liberals are traitors are considered mainstream.

So, yes, most of this is old news to political junkies like ourselves (hell, to any American paying the least bit of attention to political rhetoric), but it's something we should not lose sight of. George W. Bush wishes to divide Americans, he has nothing but contempt for those who don't agree with him lockstep, despite the fact that only 42% of the country thinks he's doing a good job. (It was especially indicative that even immediately after last year's election, a time when one traditionally reaches out to those with whom one disagrees, Bush followed up remarks about "serv[ing] all Americans," by adding that "I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals," i.e. we will work with anyone who already agrees with us.)

We can only hope that the Politics of Demonization will continue to fail as more and more Americans realize that when Karl Rove implies that those who oppose this administration are traitors, he is talking about them.