Years of public confusion is a tough nut to crack

December 29, 2005

For an embarrassingly long time, large numbers of Americans believed a series of bogus claims about Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, including non-existent connections to 9/11. The good news is the percentages have fallen considerably since the war began. The bad news is we still have a ways to go.

According to a new poll published today by the Wall Street Journal, war-related myths continue linger in the public’s mind.

* 41% of poll respondents said Saddam Hussein had “strong links” with Al Qaeda. This is down from 64% who believed this 10 months ago.

* 22% said Hussein helped plan and support the hijackers who attacked the United States on 9/11. In February 2005, 47% believed this. (Complicating matters in the more recent poll, an additional 30% said they were “not sure” if this is true or not.)

* 26% said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded. That’s down 10 points since February.

* 24% said several of the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11 were Iraqis. Ten months ago, 44% believed this. (In case you’ve forgotten, the actual number of Iraqi hijackers on 9/11 is zero.)

Who’s responsible for such widespread confusion? The Bush administration clearly deserves some blame with its irresponsible and highly misleading rhetoric, before the invasion and after it. That said, some of these claims were dropped from the White House talking points over a year ago, and some (such as the notion of Iraqi hijackers) were never uttered in the first place.

News outlets may bear some blame, but even the worst of the he-said, she-said reports make clear that there’s no evidence of “strong ties” between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda and/or 9/11. (This does not include Fox News, whose viewers are more confused than anyone else.)

And that leaves the uninformed people themselves who have to take responsibility for understanding basic truths. Nearly three years after the war began, there’s no excuse for one-in-four Americans believing that Iraq had WMD and Iraqis helped execute the 9/11 attacks. You don’t have to be a news junkie reading six newspapers a day to recognize reality.

It simply amazes me that a) people think this, and b) that the administration, if for no other reason than simply trying to get a foothold on a recovery of integrity, doesn’t come out and actively disavow this misconception.

The needed effect has run its course, and there’s nothing more to be gained by leaving this impression out there.

  • There is one positive gleam in all of this, even though it is exasperating that so many millions of our fellow countrymen still remain grossly ignorant of the basic realities of the Iraq adventure.

    But think of what’s going on here. The media is owned by the same people who own the government–so why would they now report enough of the truth to lead a significant percentages of the population to revise their opinions about Iraq and 9/11 in such a way as to approximate reality? It would seem counter to the interests of the corporate masters, seeing how the GOP has given them everything they could possibly want. I have a hunch that the Puppeteers are beginning to get nervous about their congressional and executive-branch tools–the unhappiness of the American sheep could lead to unrest (or a weakened economy) and therefore unhappy corporate masters. It may be that they now think a housecleaning might be in order. Nothing will really change, of course, but I’m reading this as sentiment that the people who own the GOP are displeased and so are throwing a few of them to the wolves by trying to educate the public just a little bit.

  • Certainly there are those that stubbornly cling to these beliefs in the face of the evidence that there is almost certainly no truth to them. However, the Bushites juxtapose the two without fear of any questioning about the pre-invasion connection between the two. For Americans with little exposure to anything else but the evening network news and small town newspapers, seeing/reading the administrion using Iraq/terror used together supports their preconceived notions.

    I think the 20-25% range is as low as these numbers are going to get – no facts will persuade them. It’s the first point (Saddam-Al Qaeda) at 41% that the Bushites have kept alive, basically unchecked by the media.

  • Right-wing talk radio (especially the smaller local guys) still repeat these discredited claims as fact. This ensures their continued life in the critical-thinking-challenged minds of most of their listeners. Here in Houston, people like Pat Gray (950am), Chris Baker (740am), and Dan Patrick (700am) are the main culprits.

    In the past month, I’ve heard such whoppers as “WMDs sent in trucks to Syria,” “Mohammed Atta met w/ Iraqi officials in Prague,” “Terri Schiavo was fine and murdered by activist judges & her abusive husband,” and most-flabbergastingly “WMDs were found in Iraq but it was covered up by the liberal media to harm Bush”.

    I regularly challenge these guys on their lies on the air and through email (Pat Gray is my favorite target). On-air, I usually get a hangup or the old “shout ’em down and throw out an irrelevant ad hominem” treatment.

    The thing that gets me is how these people are legally allowed to spread such blatant and demonstrable falsehoods on the public airwaves day in and out. It seems to me that a station that continually allowed/encouraged its hosts to lie on the air about such substantive matters would have some very hard questions to answer the next time their FCC license came up for renewal.

  • GSmith, what a wonder it would be if the FCC actually held the license-holders accountable for the crap they put on the public’s airwaves! The thing they (the FCC as well as almost everyone else) keep forgetting is that the airwaves are not owned by the stations that operate on them, they are owned by the government, and licensed to them.

  • In response to actor212, much as I feel we’d agree with the sentiments of the situation, no one seriously expects the White House to come out and disprove misconceptions which lead to a large part of its continued support, and I can’t think of any political body which would do so in a similar situation. Would you?

    The White House realises that support is flagging and so whilst aware that it can no longer perpetuate such myths as Iraqi involvement in 9/11, it’s not going to go out of its way to contradict the message that many of its supporters feel they are getting from the White House (there of course being little distinction between the Press Room and the FOXnews desk).

    If, and I say this with a tentative breath, the Democrats run a good campaign in the next election, the gist will be, “The Republicans misled the public.” This has the potential to be an election-winning point and the GOP can’t take the chance of giving it support by saying now, “Yeah, we sort of did.” Even 25% of 290m people is a big number, and if they’re planning on voting red because they believe the Iraq war is justified by 9/11, the Republicans will do nothing to change this belief, and neither quite frankly, would the Democrats if the situations were reversed.

  • It begs the question, CB. Which 6 do you read?

    Well, if you’re really interested, I start with the WaPo, then go to the NYT. I then move on to the LAT, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Times. During lunch, I check the Miami Herald, but that’s generally out of habit and because I have family there.

    If I had more time, I’d add the Boston Globe, Philly Inquirer, one of the Chicago papers, and maybe some of the Texas papers (Houston Chronicle, in particular) to the mix, but there’s only so much reading a Carpetbagger can do….

  • The war on christmas, swift boat veterans for truth, and Sadam’s WMD stockpiles…etc. etc…..
    right wing talking points on display in the nightly news… Is the Lincoln Group’s approch to paid for and managed news reports limited just to Iraq? Money talks and it also buys slanted coverage.
    I don’t think even a complete democratic housecleaning in 06 really would address the problem of big money’s unchecked ability to distort our democratic process.
    We are a nation of viewers and consumers, not readers and thinkers, bombarded by thousands of commercials each day and conditioned to allowing subliminal suggestions to shape our reality. Our media based political opinion is formed in the same part of the brain as our decision to choose Bud over Miller Lite.

  • In addition to all the excellent points the rest of you have made, I also believe that a lot of people in this country are just plain lazy. They want to make up their minds about an issue once and only once, and they usually don’t want to waste a lot of time analyzing data while deciding. Once they come to a conclusion that door is closed and rarely, if ever, re-opened, no matter what new facts come to light. (Thinking being such “hard work” and all.)

    I’ve never understood this stubborn refusal by some to re-examine their belief system from time to time. I suspect that many don’t want to have to admit that they were wrong…because if they could be wrong about one issue they might be wrong about others, and what a mess that would be. It’s so much easier to just ignore any new developments that don’t support the decision already made. (Just like the retard in the WH. W has to be the most intellectually lazy, least curious, introspective, analytical president we’ve ever had. It’s what some people actually like and admire about the guy!)

    We could probably bombard the airwaves and plaster the print media with the TRUTH day after day after day and still end up with about 25% of the public apathetically hellbent on believing the lie. I’m hoping we’ll be okay without ’em.

  • “Our media based political opinion is formed in the same part of the brain as our decision to choose Bud over Miller Lite.”

    Oh good Lord, kali, after all these great comments I can
    only relate to yours. Definitely, Budweiser is superior
    to Miller Lite. No contest. Trust me. Not that Bud is a
    great beer. Only that Miller is worse.

    But on the subject of polls. This one actually heartened
    me. I’d have predicted higher numbers. But I’m afraid
    bad news is coming. Consumer confidence has
    rebounded dramatically to near pre-Katrina levels, and
    that means Bush’s numbers are going higher, even
    beyond his recent bounce back.

    Time for the Dems to start fighting, instead of waiting
    for the great implosion, which ain’t going to happen.
    But I’m afraid, neither is the fight from the spineless,
    witless Dems.

  • I spend a lot of wasted time in a local forum trying to educate the Bush supporters. I keep getting the old, “But Clinton had sex in the white house”, or “Carter did the same thing” type of responses.
    I am convinced that there are those who would follow this administration the the gates of hell. (which is probably coming)
    They are unreachable, and will not ever be persuaded to reconsider their incorrect opinions.

  • It’s government of the corporation,by the corporations, for the corporation……..with the help of the media.

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