Thomas Sowell Fails to Do His Homework

Thomas Sowell, in a recent interview with Fox, misquotes Goebbels as saying “people will believe any lie if it is repeated long enough and loud enough.” He does qualify his statement by saying that “Goebbels is supposed to have said” it.

As I have observed often before, although Goebbels believed lying to be a necessary tool of the propagandist, in public he always maintained that his propaganda was truthful.  Indeed, he preferred to tell the truth, although often selectively. 

Sowell’s quotation is also more a revised version of Hitler’s notorious claim about the “big lie” technique, although Hitler, too, was not claiming it to be his policy, but rather accusing the Jews of Vienna of the tactic.

Sowell is normally a careful scholar, so it is disappointing to find him citing Goebbels inaccurately.