{"id":8387,"date":"2006-09-06T10:25:48","date_gmt":"2006-09-06T14:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8387.html"},"modified":"2006-09-06T10:25:48","modified_gmt":"2006-09-06T14:25:48","slug":"widespread-confusion-lingers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/widespread-confusion-lingers\/","title":{"rendered":"Widespread confusion lingers"},"content":{"rendered":"

In July, a very depressing Harris poll found that half<\/i> of the country — literally 50% — believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the United States invaded the country in 2003, despite reality<\/a>. What’s more, that number has increased<\/i> from 36% in a Harris poll last year. Unfortunately, it’s not the only thing about which the public is confused.<\/p>\n

A new Zogby [tag]poll[\/tag]<\/a> shows nearly as many Americans believe Saddam Hussein was connected to 9\/11.<\/p>\n

Half of American voters (50%) say there is no link between [tag]Saddam Hussein[\/tag] and the [tag]9\/11[\/tag] terror attacks, while 46% believe there is a connection. […]<\/p>\n

As with other questions, the survey’s queries about Saddam’s reputed involvement in 9\/11 show Democrats and Republicans holding opposite views.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, on this question, reality has a partisan bias, though far too many people across the board are uninformed. Among Dems, 65% said there was no Saddam-9\/11 connection, but 32% said the opposite. Among independents, 56% said there was no connection, but 39% said there was. Republicans, unfortunately, were the most confused, with 65% saying there was a connection, and 30% of Republicans saying there wasn’t.<\/p>\n

The public doesn’t know much about our political leaders, either.
\n
\nJonathan Singer, noting the latest Quinnipiac results, reported yesterday<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Republicans have been up on the air in a number of congressional districts around the country trying to paint Democratic candidates as excessively liberal and too close of allies of House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi — a San Francisco<\/i> liberal. Leaving aside the fact that being labeled a “Democrat” in this political environment would probably help, more than hurt most candidates, new polling from Quinnipiac University finds that Pelosi is largely unknown by the electorate.<\/p>\n

The Quinnipiac survey shows that a 53 percent majority of Americans aren’t familiar enough with Pelosi to form an opinion about her, the same amount as are unfamiliar with Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist. Close to two-thirds of Americans (65 percent) don’t know much about Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid while no numbers were available for either House Speaker Denny Hastert or House Republican Leader John Boehner.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, considering all of the recent data, Americans don’t know much about Iraq’s non-existent WMD, the forces behind 9\/11, or Congress.<\/p>\n

And our democracy is dependent on an informed electorate making wise decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In July, a very depressing Harris poll found that half of the country — literally 50% — believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the United States invaded the country in 2003, despite reality. What’s more, that number has increased from 36% in a Harris poll last year. Unfortunately, it’s not the only […]<\/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-8387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8387","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=8387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}