I agree with Matt Yglesias that this Washington Post story about America’s propaganda effort in Iraq raises all sorts of interesting issues ripe for discussion. But Yglesias’ conclusion strikes me as wildly overstated. He writes:

Basically, the administration is trying to create an entirely fictional war in which the USA has over 100,000 troops stationed in Iraq because they’re fighting al Qaeda. That simply isn’t what they’re doing. A policy that’s only publicly justifiable in the context of massive deception is almost certainly going to be a bad policy.

Me: Really? An “entirely fictional war”? If that’s true, Bush and Cheney should fire their speechwriters since that’s hardly the only, or even chief, storyline in the umpteen war speeches I’ve heard Bush give.