{"id":11473,"date":"2007-07-16T12:44:12","date_gmt":"2007-07-16T16:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11473.html"},"modified":"2007-07-16T12:44:12","modified_gmt":"2007-07-16T16:44:12","slug":"the-lie-isnt-working","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-lie-isnt-working\/","title":{"rendered":"The lie isn’t working"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve talked at some length<\/a> about the White House using demonstrably false rhetoric about al Qaeda in Iraq as part of a cynical and deceptive strategy to rally public support under false pretenses. Americans don’t support U.S. staying in the middle of a civil war, but maybe, the Bush gang hopes, Americans will support a war against al Qaeda.<\/p>\n

The bad news is, it’s working; Americans are now confused about al Qaeda’s role in Iraq. The good news is, it doesn’t matter; Americans still oppose the president’s policy.<\/p>\n

Greg Sargent highlighted<\/a> a largely overlooked question from the latest Newsweek poll<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Right now, which of the following do you think is the biggest threat to achieving peace and stability in Iraq?<\/p>\n

34% Al Qaeda in Iraq, 9% Sunni nationalists, 14% Shiite militias, 13% Same\/All equal,
\n30% Don’t know<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, at first blush, it’s worth noting that with this conflict in its fifth year, about a third of Americans aren’t sure who the enemy is, and another third are wrong about who the enemy is. That’s not exactly a good sign.<\/p>\n

But in the context of the political debate, this might appear to be good news for the White House. The president has been arguing aggressively that those responsible for 9\/11 are now the “main enemy” for the United States in Iraq. It’s false, he knows it’s false, but the White House won’t let reality get in the way of an argument.<\/p>\n

The Newsweek poll suggests a plurality of the public is buying it. As Greg explained<\/a>, the latest intelligence assessment shows that Sunni insurgents are blamed for 70% of attacks in Iraq<\/a>, but this reality isn’t reaching the public; Bush’s rhetoric is.<\/p>\n

But the same poll shows only half of the White House strategy has been effective.
\n
\nBush’s deception is working, inasmuch as Americans now perceive AQI as the principal problem in Iraq, but it’s also failing, inasmuch as this bogus claim isn’t shifting opinions on the broader Iraq policy.<\/p>\n

* Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bush is handling the situation in Iraq?<\/p>\n

68% disapprove, 27% approve, 5% don’t know<\/p>\n

* Do you think President Bush’s “surge” plan increasing U.S. troops in Iraq has been a success or a failure?<\/p>\n

64% failure, 22% success, 14% don’t know<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The point of the White House’s lie is to rally support for the cause. People are hearing the lie, some are even believing the lie, but the purpose behind the lie is failing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve talked at some length about the White House using demonstrably false rhetoric about al Qaeda in Iraq as part of a cynical and deceptive strategy to rally public support under false pretenses. Americans don’t support U.S. staying in the middle of a civil war, but maybe, the Bush gang hopes, Americans will support a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}