Garth Wright: Hanson uses propaganda techniques to advance GOP lies

Re “What might be said about Clinton” (Page 5A, Aug. 18): Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda, said the bigger the lie the easier it was for the public to swallow. Overwhelmed with strenuous and repetitive advancement, they simply believe the lie must be true. Victor Davis Hanson clearly acts as if speculation and truth were synonymous. Having served almost 30 years in the military, and afterwards some 17 as a history professor, I am sad to see the Stanford history department, where he teaches, harbors those devoid of even basic critical thinking.

Perhaps, in those privileged halls, reliant upon wealthy corporate donors, facts become rather inconvenient. Space limits me to just one example: Receipt of unmarked classified material is not a crime, sending it is. Nowhere is Hillary Clinton accused of sending unmarked material, only of receiving some. Perhaps, if Clinton had that magic crystal ball, available only to a Republican few, she would have seen the truth. The same truth where Republicans saw weapons of mass destruction where intelligence agencies did not.

Making war to boost one’s pathetic Rambo self-image is bad enough; to do it from an armchair, 4,000 miles from the bleeding and dying is the real criminality that requires serious examination.

This story was originally published August 22, 2016 at 4:16 PM with the headline "Garth Wright: Hanson uses propaganda techniques to advance GOP lies."