The latest effort of the Republican right and the leader they vigilantly rallied around not that long ago and have now forgotten is reminiscent of a ploy that occurred regularly within the now defunct Soviet Union.

When a former leader became too huge a burden to explain then he would be banished. Children would no longer study this leader’s period of history. An effort would be made within top leadership circles to erase that leader from memory.

The most celebrated example of Soviet attempted erasure came when Nikita Khrushchev took great pains to erase Joseph Stalin from memory. There were all those gulags, those knocks on doors in the middle of the night, then the transporting of opponents to undisclosed locations never to be heard from again.

The strategy was to treat the embarrassing historical period and the leader behind it as if those events and that individual never existed. Those Russians initiating that strategy are tactically similar to the Republican right and the eight years when they not only rallied mightily behind George W. Bush.

Republicans then denounced as naysayers if not outright traitors those who dared to criticize someone who, after 9/11, was supposed to stand totally above politics. Bush was cited as a leader to be revered in the manner of those figures like Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson who were accorded statues and monuments.

Bush piled up massive amounts of debt with Republicans leading the way in supporting him, finding sufficient numbers along with so-called Blue Dog Democrats to get the job done as they wanted it.

Massive amounts of expenditures were accumulated with the Iraq War as private contractors along with global corporate giants such as Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, along with Bechtel and Monsanto prospered enormously in the newly occupied country at taxpayer expense, not to mention the privatization of security forces and Blackwater along with the numerous problems that move entailed.

The other day at Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address he reminded critical Republicans of the situation that existed before he even “walked in the door.” Yes, who was that in office prior to Obama? Now that is what is being kept secret.

In short, Obama arrives and can barely make his way through the door due to the massive debt avalanche that threatens to swallow him. Now suddenly the Republican right is concerned about deficits, which they never fretted about before, and the economic problems were caused by Obama and Democratic congressional supporters.

It must be Obama’s fault because the office was unoccupied for two terms. This is the Republican public relations style based on spin control and a fervent denial of reality.

In short, here is the history. According to the Republican spin control posse Bill Clinton destroyed America’s moral climate by having an affair with a White House intern. That was followed by Obama accumulating debt.

The question must be asked: What happened to the Republican hero of 9/11? Is he a figment of our imaginations?