This Monday your W Team spent an illuminating morning over breakfast with none other than Webster Potemkin, the renowned image-maker and founding partner of Potemkin/Munchhausen, the puissant political PR firm.
 
As you may know, Barry Munchhausen is of late, late. But before passing on to his eternal and, we'll wager, extravagantly warm reward, he and Potemkin enshrined their reputations in some of America's most infamous political sleights-of-hand. Their oeuvre includes such monuments to flummery as the Tonkin Gulf Incident, the Willie Horton affair, and talking Michael Dukakis into wearing that silly helmet.
 
But their crowning glory, the ne plus ultra of their peculiar industry was born when they convinced America that Iraq possessed significant stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction--a feat somewhat akin to selling menorahs to Hamas.
 
In fact it was this selfsame coup de fou that had occasioned our matinal rendezvous with Potemkin. The past several days had seen a growing number of stories concerning the administration's embarrassing failure to locate even a single infernal device
 
Earlier the President had declared that two trailers discovered lurking--we dare to believe--in a crowded intersection in downtown Baghdad, constituted the biological weapons Saddam had planned to rain down upon our innocent little heads. Left unexplained was the fact that the trailers were pristinely innocent of even so much as a common cold germ.
 
By these criteria every doublewide in America would fall under the umbrella of suspected linkage to the Al Quaeda. And, what was worse, newspapers here and in Britain were daily discovering new evidence of faked intelligence and suspect analyses. The WMD story seemed to be unraveling, and it was this fact that had put the mis'ry in our minds and made us to sing the worried song.
 
"Web," we shrieked, coming to his table, "The jig is up! They've cottoned to the game! It's the end of the line, boy!"
 
We are not good in crisis situations.
 
We released his lapels, but continued in the same vein, "Even Joe and Mabel Sixpack aren't going for this one, and now that they know they've been had the whole house of cards is going to come down on us!"
 
Potemkin held up a calming hand and gave us a cheerful wink. "You'd think so, wouldn't you?' And he chuckled as he stirred his coffee. He took an assaying sip, then put the cup down and smiled a wry little smile.
 
"But that's not the way it works. Sure, if nothing turns up the press will have a field day for a few weeks, but the American people will take it in stride and move on."
 
This didn't make sense. "That doesn't make sense," we said, "Those weapons were the sole reason for going to war. How is the public going to overlook that?"
 
Potemkin meticulously buttered his toast. "Because," he said, "The American people, or, for that matter, people anywhere, are--god love 'em--incurious and intellectually lazy--which is a mercy, because what government could survive with 300 million smart-asses watching and critiquing its every move? It'd be pure hell--like being trapped in a lawyer's convention."
 
"But," we objected, "There was a lot riding on this. Now they won't believe a thing the President says, they'll be suspicious of every--"
 
"No, no," he interrupted, "You're making a distinction between the President and the presidency. The public doesn't do that...look," he said, "Here's a little secret you can take to the bank: people will always make room for facts."
 
We didn't get it. "We don't get it," we said.
 
"It's simple, resistance to an idea is always highest when it's in the abstract, and virtually disappears when it becomes concrete. After that, to be accepted all an idea has to do is stick around long enough for everyone to get used to it. This explains Americans' shift to a favorable opinion of the war; it explains why over half of the country now approves of the tax cuts when they couldn't have cared less about them a few weeks ago; it explains the Israeli settlements; hell, far as I know, it explains Jerry Lewis."
 
"But," we said, "How does that--"
 
"Because the fact is that no matter how he got there the President is now the President, moreover he is the presidency, and the American people are by nature disposed to trust the presidency--even it's Nixon or Clinton. To do otherwise would be too traumatic--like seeing daddy come home drunk."
 
"But even the American public has a breaking point," we whined, "This would have to happen just as we were gearing up for Iran. We could find ourselves in the middle of the election next year without a war to our name!"
 
He smiled indulgently. "Won't happen. Just thinking about all the complexities of terrorism makes people's heads hurt. This is where anti-war activists go wrong; they're trying to make people deal with the complexities. That's like asking them to solve simultaneous equations, when all they really want to do is simple addition and subtraction, and not much of that."
 
We didn't know what to say to that.
 
"Here's another little secret," he said, "Given the choice, people will always accept a simple explanation over a complicated one. If we went to war for phony reasons it means that not only was the President lying, but that the media, the Congress and the intelligence agencies were all in it together. It means...well, you get the point, these aren't the kinds of thoughts that lead to a peaceful night's sleep.
 
It's much simpler to believe the Iraqis had WMDs that have now, magically, disappeared. Maybe Saddam destroyed them on the eve of battle--which would be the first time in history such a thing had happened; maybe he gave them away to the Syrians; maybe nuclear goblins ate them up--who cares? It's over. Time to get on with the next thing."
 
"Which is...?" we asked.
 
"Oh, Iran, Syria, quiet things down in the Middle East, quash France, punish Germany, dominate the earth...you know, same old same old."
 
We glowed with admiration for the seminal giant who sat before us. "Gosh, Web," we said, "You're the best. We bet you could even teach Karl Rove a thing or two."
 
Potemkin's mood grew dark. He threw down his napkin and nearly hissed. "Rove!" he spat out, "Don't mention that no-talent amateur in my presence!" Any fool can manipulate public opinion if he has control of the entire apparatus of government. We did it the old fashioned way, with raw courage and nothing more than an insincere smile and our fingers crossed behind our backs!"