"There's no disputing that Saddam was/is an evil man, but the degree to which Bush's war was personal was truly remarkable. "He tried to kill my Daddy" is one giveaway. Even in World War II, while there was a heavy focus on Hitler, that war was still about "Hitler and the Nazis", and there was little rhetoric about how we actually love the German people and our goal was to liberate them. "

The German people wanted and work towards expanding the empire, Saddam merely controls oil wealth and thereby as power. So it is about Saddam. And it's quite different.

"Why not use the term spin instead of propaganda.

Because to call it "spin" would itself be spin. A heavy bombardment of disinformation and unsupported allegation goes way beyond spin. It's propaganda."

Count total hours of this "bombardment" compared to other sources on the TV news, I think you will find more time of reporters spinning what is meant than people from govt saying something. Now, I suppose you could claim that "everything" is controlled by govt- but from where I see it the News is indepentant from govt (you could say they are independent "from reality" for most part). If you think all the talking heads are controlled by govt, then it's pretty poor control. Now, you could say their was some effort not to allow "the news to conduct the war" [this was done mainly by having miltary guys run war opposed to the politicans- that's simply smart- politicans run wars very badly- setting wrong priorities and confusing spin for the real reality, leaving you with dead soldiers and low morale].

"That's right. Can you say "wag the dog"?"

Problem with this is it takes time get 200,000 soldier somewhere, it also takes time to plan the whole war. If all you are doing is launching some cruise missiles and/or a few air strikes then it could take less time, but even if this is done well, it still takes time.