I don't buy this yet. I seem to recall seeing several polls several months back that put the percent of Americans that believed Bush deliberately misled the country about Iraq well into the 50's.
How can the percentage of people who believe Iraq had WMDs have gone up? That's madness.
Yeah, this is a weird result, and things are pretty fucked up right now, but I just found this funny aside from Ogged:
Lindsay Beyerstein (whose blog photo makes me think "lesbian Elvis"), has cooking tips for guys who want to "impress women and get laid."
Heh.
OK, back on topic. Check out the Instapundit reporting of the survey:
THIS IS INTERESTING: "Half of Americans now say Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the United States invaded the country in 2003 -- up from 36 percent last year, a Harris poll finds. Pollsters deemed the increase both 'substantial' and 'surprising' in light of persistent press reports to the contrary in recent years."
Apparently, trust in "persistent press reports" isn't what it used to be.
This is one of those irritating cases where he serves as both contributor to and chronicler of the phenomenon.
It should be noted, for posterity, that Lindsay is not, in fact, a lesbian.
I know the administration likes to equivocate about WMDs in Iraq and links between Saddam and Al Qaeda, but what about right-wing news and pundits? Are they bad about that too?
4: "persistent press reports to the contrary" s/b "the complete fucking absence of WMDs"
I know this sounds absolutely insane, and it is, but I think there's a pretty simple explanation.
Remember that most Americans didn't turn against the war once it was obvious that it was completely unjustified. Even after the Kay Report and the Duelfer Report, millions of Americans still thought Saddam had WMD, and long after every crackpot theory from the Weekly Standard had been debunked, majorities and pluralities in polls still thought Iraq had some connection to 9/11. This didn't change once the facts came to light; this only started to change once it was clear that we were losing the war.
Once we were losing soldiers on a regular basis, once car bombs were going off regularly in Baghdad, once it became obvious that the capture of Saddam Hussein had not in fact made Americans safer, then the war's popularity started taking a serious hit - and that's when people started allowing themselves to recognize that the war hadn't accomplished anything either... that there was no WMD stockpile and no al Qaeda connection.
Recently, though, Bush's ratings on the war have started to take an uptick. I have no idea why, but if I had to hazard a guess, it would be because Americans have tuned out the daily bombings and killings in Iraq, and are only paying attention to the "major events," like the Zarqawi kill. So there's a certain percentage of Americans who last paid attention to the war when the Boss Evildoer got taken down. So it's see-no-evil time, and reality changes accordingly.
I think Mr. Jones is right, actually. Yesterday a guy I carpool with said to me something like, "things are getting better in Iraq, right?" So I turned on NPR.
I notice the study was conducted July 5-11, just as the current Middle East shitstorm was kicking off. I wonder if that affected the results.
[P]ersistent press reports to the contrary.
The press has repeatedly reported that other people, e.g., Rep. Weldon, say yes there were—and maybe still are—WMDs in Iraq. Repsectable authorities such as the Vice President continue to hedge. They have shifted the burden so the opposition has to prove the negative.
Keeping the waters muddy is a goal here.
30-35% of the population are zombie Republicans. 10-15% are whim citizens who are completely passive about information-gathering.
Part of the media (Fox) still pretend that WMD were discovered, etc., but most of the rest of the media just floats the truth occasionally for CYA purposes. There's no "Bush was wrong" drumbeat, much less "Bush lied", and to get the whim voters you need a drumbeat.
I often hear Democrats say something like "If people are as lazy and dumb as that, they're not worth bothering with", but they're the swing vote, and Rove knows how to work them.
Never underestimate the power of cognitive dissonance.
Disbelieving in WMDs and the Iraq/Al Queda link means that 30,000 American casualties were for nothing and the party you affiliate yourself with is made up of lying scumbags.
That's a tough pill to swallow, so you chew on the tasty, comforting lie pie instead.
I really wish I was clever enough to come up with a better quip than "lie pie", but I can't.
So you wash it down with the refreshing liemonade.
It should be noted, for posterity, that Lindsay is not, in fact, a lesbian.
Nor is she Elvis, although she is very very cool.
I hate explanations for these phenomena that posit a vast gulf between our intelligence and those surveyed.
Some data points: a google search reveals some conflict on the very first page; see especially this.
As I've said before, there's a lot of confusion over what might count as WMD. Santorum et al. find something minor & claim that "WMD in Iraq!" is true; the average viewer, not reading a bazillion blog posts on this, hears him and takes it to mean that we've found a huge stockpile.
"Technically true but completely misleading" is a hard point to make in this sort of political environment. "Liberal Blog Unfogged Admits: WMD in Iraq!" will go next to my Greenwald attacks as my great legacy. In exchange, baa has promised me a position as his limo driver.
Scrolling down on WM I saw this.
"In a weird sort of vicious circle, Congress passes deliberately complex laws and then spends vast amounts of money on constituent services to help voters who are having trouble with federal bureaucracy. Because of this, constituent service has skyrocketed in the past few decades, and the beneficiaries of this service tend to vote for the people who helped them regardless of party affiliation or ideology."
I don't know what to say.
I hate explanations for these phenomena that posit a vast gulf between our intelligence and those surveyed.
I don't particularly like making them (well, maybe a little), but seriously, you don't have to read a billion blog posts to understand that Santorum's claim is bullshit. If it were legit, Bush and Rumsfeld would be towing those stupid shells down Pennsylvania Avenue on a flower-covered float, then standing atop them to give his press conference through a bullhorn. This requires the same level of suspension of disbelief as stating that you're waiting for OJ Simpson to find the real killers.
I hate explanations for these phenomena that posit a vast gulf between our intelligence and those surveyed.
I spoke to an American woman recently who was not aware that America had ever invaded Afghanistan; she thought we had gone straight from 9/11 to Iraq without passing Kabul. I will paypal you $5 for a non-gulf-related explanation of this phenomenon.
(Though I agree with you that the definition of WMD is fuzzy enough that there is a sense in which "there were WMD in Iraq when the US invaded" is technically not wholly false).
On looking at the thing some more, it's interesting that, while the number of people who think there were WMDs in Iraq has gone up, the number who think that the war is good for America's image abroad has gone down. I would imagine that if what's driving the shift (assuming there is one, that this one poll isn't just a blip) is that people have a higher opinion of the war generally following things like the Zarqawi news, people's views about international perceptions of the war (fuzzy, changeable in the future) would be easier to improve than their views about the presence of WMDs (a matter of past fact). Which to my mind suggests that (assuming, again, that there's anything to this) people are responding to something they heard on the news about Santorum's press conferences, rather than to generalized good feelings about the war.
More than stupidity, I think that limited information sources and limited time explain a lot. Few people spend a steady half-hour a day on political reading and thinking, and many rely on dishonest media.
On top of that, many people live in hysterical moral universes where, for example, gay sex is literally the end of the world. These are probably mostly stupid people, but not all. Look at Derbyshire.
FL, the Santorum claim wasn't that widely reported - certainly not widely enough to explain half the country suddenly deciding that Saddam had WMD. In fact I recall the right-wing blog take on that was Why Isn't The Media Reporting On This Breathtaking New WMD Find?
As for explanations that posit a vast gulf between our intelligence and those surveyed: (1) I suspect that there are far more stupid people in the world than any of us realizes or is prepared to accept, and (2) in this particular case, it's not just stupidity so much as lack of interest. Mickey Kaus, who I believe is probably a fairly intelligent human being, displays little to no real interest in foreign policy, and produces some fantastically asinine analysis whenever he's prompted to give his opinion on the subject (he's been in the "things are getting better in Iraq, right?" camp for months now).
SJ, right you are about Santorum. I should have said that's one example among many, and if you hear "WMD in Iraq!" often enough, and, as Emerson notes, if you don't spend much time on it, you might come to believe it.
I find all of this very, very confusing and troubling. My half-baked commitment through a lot of this has been that one morning in the not too distant future we'll all wake up and think, "what was that all about?" then get to work cleaning up the giant mess. Yet we seem to be as far away from that fantasy as ever.
Yeah, I just can't understand how anybody could think things are improving in Iraq unless they are steadfastly ignoring the news, which surely Ogged Kaus isn't doing.
Emerson's correct. It is entirely possible to live in a world in which all things are best explained by Fox News. You don't even have to change that many pieces: will to win is all important, risks from terrorists are potentially existential, the Islamic religious zealots will not be stopped by reason or fear, etc. There's very little to correct you, particularly in the absence of a family member at risk, any peculiar worry about the effect on the economy, or our reputation overseas.
At the end of the day, all you can do is try to choose universes, either by voting in your universe, or voting with your feet.
Someone needs to develop a quiz to identify ours and theirs. "If your son underperforms on a test, the proper reaction is to (a) hug him, (b) beat him, (c) ignore him, or (d) sit down and try to figure out what happened." That feels like it would be a start.
21: I confess, with humility, that once during college I was watching TV and asked, "what's that big thing on fire?" "Uh, it's the Olympic Stadium." I had no idea the games were on. It's easy to get out of touch.
Thesis: The Democrats will win neither the midterms nor the 2008 election.
if you hear "WMD in Iraq!" often enough, and, as Emerson notes, if you don't spend much time on it, you might come to believe it.
This is true, but have there really been that many "WMD in Iraq!" stories over the past year? From 36% to ~50% is huge.
25: Going by his Bloggingheads.tv appearances - which I naturally watch religiously - it's hard not to come to the conclusion that he maybe skims the top foreign news stories on occasion, or pays attention to them to the extent that they intersect with horserace politics or various issues he actually does care about, but largely ignores the rest of the world. I have no other explanation for why he seems so convinced that someday, somehow, Iraq will turn into a success story, unless Ann Coulter has just laid eggs in his brain or something.
If Cala's thesis is correct, then I call for Violent Revolution.
28: Absent a really stark downturn in the economy, it's going to be very difficult for the Democrats to take either house, just because gerrymandering has become such a science that it's nearly impossible to unseat an incumbent. As for the presidency, it's really going to come down to who the two nominees are.
29: SJ, you're convincing me. I wonder if it is some kind of after-the-fact cognitive dissonance thing. But then the effect should be strongest among those people who are most vividly aware of the badness of the current situation, right?
which I naturally watch religiously
Me, too. Or rather, I listen religiously. I'm not 100% sure why, as I am constantly irritated by either Kaus, or by Wright's weak attacks on Kaus. Fucking ogged.
pays attention to them to the extent that they intersect with horserace politics or various issues he actually does care about
He does not trust news not filtered through Iraq the Model or some other wingnut blog or personage. He just doesn't. Which is why Emerson's right about what's happening.
Many sources have never acknowledged problems in the WMD story -- notably Fox, the White House, and the various Christian Right groups. Nobody on the other side is hammering away on it every day the way you need to. It's mentioned not and then, but it's not a theme or storyline.
Look at the way Dobbs has been doing illegal aliens every day for God knows how long. Repetition sells. No one in the mainstream media, or even in the Democratic party, has been doing that with Bush's fraudulent war.
Instapundit seems to suggest that the poll numbers reflect a growing sentiment among Americans that the MSM has an adgenda and is untrustworthy. In other words, if the press is reporting "x" over and over again, then the truth must be "not x".
Also, while Iraq's possession of WMD and ties to Al Qaeda are claims that can be proven or disproven on historical evidence, beliefs about how history will regard the US invasion or whether Iraq will eventually form a stable democracy are not.
He does not trust news not filtered through Iraq the Model or some other wingnut blog or personage. He just doesn't. Which is why Emerson's right about what's happening.
I can buy this for Kaus, I guess, but are there enough people relying on alternative media filters to explain the kind of shift we're seeing in the survey? I don't know if even Fox News has that wide of a reach. I'm guessing there are more people who just aren't really paying attention.
But then the effect should be strongest among those people who are most vividly aware of the badness of the current situation, right?
I don't think so. I think the people who pay a whole lot of attention are either relatively well-informed, or are getting their news through media filters that reinforce their beliefs, so you end up with a certain clump of maybe twenty-five, thirty percent or so who will go to their graves thinking Iraq had WMD and that Saddam was in bed with Osama bin Laden. But they've been around and sucking down this propaganda since it was out there to suck down; what's making that survey number bloat upwards, I think, is a squishy middle of relatively uninformed people who have a vague impression of what's going on in Iraq based on snippets they occasionally catch on TV, and that's where I think the heavy-duty reality-warp and cognitive dissonance is going on.
a growing sentiment among Americans that the MSM has an adgenda and is untrustworthy
Last time I checked, Fox News, the WSJ, National Review, etc. were part of the mainstream media.
I really don't understand how Fox News can get away with calling itself a news program. I realize this is a naive thing to say and there is a long history of partisan propganda in major news vehicles, but still.
Limbaugh and O'Reilly are also part of the MSM. It's really a bogus smear term. Pat Robertson is part of the MSM.
Nah, if you're on the right, MSM means networks, the Times and the Post. Who aren't reporting the good news. The strength of this belief is surprising. The reporters aren't reporting the good news that is surely happening in the country. When the reporters can't get to those parts of the country because it isn't safe. Yeah, I'm sure they are all celebrating in the places it's too dangerous to drive.
39: Because no respectable, "mainstream" news source has the nerve to point at them and say "These people are full of shit."
I guess, but are there enough people relying on alternative media filters to explain the kind of shift we're seeing in the survey?
It doesn't have to be that wide. If I were in the market for good bacon, I'd take Apostropher's word as gospel. All you really need is for one in twenty or so to have Rush or Insty or WashTimes or NR as his primary news source. He's likely to be the most politically informed (or misinformed) person in his social group. That's enough. Particularly when the local paper and local television news, as is usual, are bland pablum that take up time rather than answer questions.
As Emerson said, most people have neither the time nor the inclination to find enough information that they come across contradictions that force rethinking. And, re FL, I don't think this requires that these people be particularly stupid. I essentially do the same thing, and do most of us. I believe that the people I know and trust are more informed and more rigourous than the general public. But that's pure faith in many cases.
Because no respectable, "mainstream" news source has the nerve to point at them and say "These people are full of shit."
Worse than that, they treat them with respect. Because the NYT, and WaPo, and even LAT, want to be "non-partisan."
He's likely to be the most politically informed (or misinformed) person in his social group.
That's a very good point.
So, has anyone else ever been an election judge in a U.S. election? Because I'm here to tell you, even people who have a conscious ideology, who read widely, who hold responsible jobs, even those people can be extremely ignorant about the political realities of the country they live in.
Take your average office worker -- lives in the 'burbs, goes to church on Sunday, likes beer and golf and softball. What do they ever get, in their education, their workplace or their social life, that would make them really consider political questions with enough rigor to come up with a formulation like "The government is prosecuting two wars for an overlapping set of reasons that have to do with self-interest on the part of the decision-makers, cynical calculations of political advantage for their party, promises made to various large institutions and plutocrats, conflicting geopolitical considerations and beholdeness to some fairly disturbing ideological principles"? And, even if they do come up with something similar to that, is it really expressable via a 7-minute cellphone conversation with some kid from Colorado who's been calling you for several days, as evinced by your "received calls" log showing numbers from some area code you've never heard of? As with voting, I have to assume that many of the people reached in telephone polls are basically giving the answer that they think they are probably supposed to, based on whatever they heard in the past couple of days and the connotations of various buzzwords that get mentioned.
That's a very good point.
Not only is that a very good point, until its disproven I'm going to consider SCMT some kind of sociological genius.
He's likely to be the most politically informed (or misinformed) person in his social group. That's enough.
That still doesn't explain the survey we're talking about. The survey didn't say "lots of people think we found WMD in Iraq." It said "a whole lot more people think we found WMD in Iraq than we did last year." Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and Rick Santorum are not enough to explain this. There were quite a few hyped "WMD finds" before Santorum's, most of which happened before the 36% mark in that survey. Now, I'm perfectly willing to believe that a substantial chunk of that 36% is comprised of the type of person you describe - that, is, in fact, precisely what I argued in 37. But those people aren't enough to account for half of all Americans.
Something changed fairly recently, and I don't think Santorum's not-that-hyped press release was enough to do it. The bigger news out of Iraq - the news that got hyped by every American news outlet for a week or more - was Zarqawi's death. It was around then that Bush's numbers on Iraq started inching up, and it fits the pattern of Americans believing what they want to believe about the war based on their impressions of it (see similar reactions following the capture of Saddam).
I don't think we really overestimate how smart people are. I think we vastly overestimate how informed people are. I would wager that over half the population of the US has not sought out any political information in over two years. Their only exposure to politics is incidental.
Now, I would say that a much smaller percentage of those people have *never* been politically involved. Most of them probably have strong political opinions from previous decades' exposure to politics.
What question was used in the poll?
I still think I'm right about the elections, but this seems just to be wishful thinking or cyncism:
.Fifty-five percent said that "history will give the U.S. credit for bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq."
Among the misinformed people I find out about are a lot of smart people, often with tech educations, sometimes with liberal arts educations.
A preference for happy thoughts also makes people ignorant. I hear about a lot of cocooned people. In the immediate term the Iraq war hasn't directly affected more than 10-20% of the population, and that's stretching it.
Hatred for liberals also motivates people to believe Bush.
I think that the reason for the upward creep in belief in the WMD is that the truth-tellers have stopped talking about the WMD, because it's old news, whereas the liars have continued to lie, because they need people to be misinformed.
I think that the key to American politics is in the passive voters (whim voters), and Rove kills us there. The Bush core is only 35%, the Dem core is probably slightly smaller, say 30%, so Rove's job (after firming up the 35%) is to get (say) 16% out of the 35%. And he does, and he relies on passive voters to do this.
It's not that Americans are dumb, it's that they're not well-informed. They can't express themselves well either.
Think about Bush: he's not well-informed, and he cannot express himself well. Most Americans are less informed than him, and cannot even express themselves at his level, which is why they like the muthafucka, and which tells you how clueless they are. The clueless are leading the even more clueless.
Commenters on this blog can actually write a grammatical sentence. Most people can't. I doubt if most people know how to answer a pollster's questions over the phone. They'll say the first thing that pops up in their minds, or what they think the pollster wants to hear.
Commenters on this blog can actually write a grammatical sentence.
You only say that because w-lfs-n's not around. Gawd, are we all fucked once he gets back.
I thought he was off doing college radio or something.
PK just corrected me on the distinction between from and by.
I swear to god he is not w-lfs-n's baby.
w-lfs-n's baby.
I saw that movie. Low production values and terrible special effects, but still creepy.
to get (say) 16% out of the 35%
By which you mean 16% of the whole, or 16% of the undecideds?
Why I cannot code links any more, I do not know.
Dude, that kid is trouble. I say, being in the possession of a double helping of trouble myself. I have explained to both Sally and Newt that Mama is frequently wrong, slow, and easily outwitted, and that those facts will get them precisely nowhere, because I still get to make the rules.
And then they mock me.
28 and 31 get it exactly right. Districts are drawn by the winners. Congress isn't going to change hands anytime soon, and Bush has been so gods-awful at being what people mistakenly think of as "Republican," that even if he becomes some huge albatross for that party by '08 it really will not be difficult for a halfway intelligent Republican presidential candidate to distance emself from BushCo and run on a "back to basics" platform and roll out all the old belt-tightening schtick about containing spending. The social conservatives who think Rah and I are going to have anti-Christ gay-babies will gladly line up to vote for whoever ends up under the 'R' column on the ballot, no matter what they do or say, so that end is already tied up.
If the Democrats make any substantive gains in the next two elections, it will either prove that I have no idea how to read the situation, politically, or that there is incontrovertible proof for a caring Divine Creator. Well, I suppose it's possible the Democratic Party could put together a real opposition platform and propose what they'd be doing instead, and get some leadership figures who are bearable to watch on TV, but then, see option (B) in the previous sentence.
True: last night I dreamt that Hillary got elected President and nominated me for Secretary of Commerce. I recall saying to Rah at one point, in the dream, "Gods, I didn't like her to begin with and now she nominates a yahoo like me for a job like this? It can not get more half-assed."
It's pointless to decipher why people believe shit. What's important is how to make them believe your shit and applying that to their neural synapses.
If we spent as much time doing solo random push polling as we do discussing these whys, we'd be successfully creating a reality to replace the mass hallucinations of a society addicted to the bad acid of a consumerist corporate media whose profits depend on the constant barrage of 'buy this' that the wielders of capital spew.
I'll compose some examples tonight that you can utilize at your leisure. Unless you'd rather just bitch about how stupid other people are, which is valid enough, but rather ineffective.
PK sounds a lot like me as a kid. B, run for the hills. There is nothing you can do to contain the perfectionist streak, and for the love of little apples keep him from philosophy courses.
60: I know! I feel for his future teachers. His saving grace is that while he thinks being bad is funny, he thinks being rude is inexcusable, so you can often get him to behave by pointing out that his not-behaving is bothering others.
He gets the perfectionism from me. Thankfully, he's also inherited his father's good humor and optimism, or he'd be doomed.
Excellent! We can have a B-Wo/PK cage fight and test that theory about how many 5-year olds it would take to bring Ben down.
Will PK be Becks-style? It seems only fair.
"50% Of Americans Are Apparently Unaware 500 WMDs Have Been Found Iraq"
"The "surprising" thing here isn't that the number of Americans who believe Saddam had WMD's has risen from 36% to 50%, it's that the number isn't 100% since 500 WMDs have been found. Certainly you could argue that the WMDs might be of limited use because of their age or that they weren't part of ongoing program, but after finding WMD stockpiles in Iraq, it's impossible to successfully argue that Saddam didn't possess them. Of course, he had WMDs!"
http://www.rightwingnews.com/
I'm guessing all those people were high--and have been since 9/11.
72: Might be helpful if the CIA and the Defense Department hadn't both said that these were old, abandoned stocks that don't count.
71: Absolutely not! PK is not of age.
76: Oh, right. Silly me.
(Actually, I gather that anything more than a sip or two is not so good for the little livers. But maybe we could give PK ogged's liver after the fight?)
I know it's a waste of time to try to explain anything to you, but something has to actually be capable of mass destruction to count as a weapon of mass destruction.
80: That's pre-9/11 thinking, you comsymp. It is unacceptable that other countries have any kind of weapons or weapon-like entities whatsoever, down to and including plastic swords and half-bricks in a sock.
Thank you Mr. Forward for your vigilance.
down to and including plastic swords and half-bricks in a sock.
Also kindergarteners, drunk or sober.
DaveL, I don't think you can transplant adult livers into children, alas.
But we all know the REAL reason why George invaded Iraq - he just can't spell and thought it was Iran.
hey, paul krugman saw this poll and wrote a column about it, apostropher. unfortunately it's behind the times select wall but it is in today's july 28th new york times...
hope that helps a bit with the forehead-bandaging?