There is an interesting article titled “The "War on Terror" as Defined by 1984's Emmanuel Goldstein”. It contains extracts from the book “1984” by George Orwell, and “Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism” (i.e. Government by a few). It is located at http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/orwell_goldstein_1984.html

Many of the techniques described seem very similar to those currently used. The excerpt below is particularly interesting, and is very close to Bush’s behavior (have they been reading Orwell’s book?) :

"The essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies, all this is indispensibly necessary."

Shannon