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Bush Supporters Still Believe Iraq Had WMD or Major Program,Supported al Qaeda

  
 
lekvar
01:02 / 22.10.04
The Program on International Policy Attitudes has released the results of a poll they conducted through September and early October which tried to break down the perceptions and beliefs held but the supporters of Kerry and Bush.

    A sampling of the results:
  • Even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%)

  • Fifty-six percent of Bush supporters assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program.

  • Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points.



Moreover, Bushies believe that world oppinion is either supportive or divided evenly on Bush and his War On Terror.

I also read the questionnairre, and found it free of leading questions. The sample sizes, while a little small, seem broad enough to seem valid.

I'm having a very hard time avoiding words like "ignorant", "stupid", "dipshits."
 
 
Ganesh
09:31 / 22.10.04
The triumph of faith-based belief systems over evidence-based. Seems increasingly prevalent - or perhaps I've just never noticed before now.
 
 
Smoothly
09:57 / 22.10.04
There are some interesting statistics in 'Outfoxed' about the huge discrepancy in the answers to these questions between those who watched Foxnews and those who watched the news. I'll dig them out when I'm home.
So one way of avoiding words like 'ignorant', 'stupid' or 'dipshits' is to consider the words 'lied to'.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
10:49 / 22.10.04
You'll be wanting this report (in PDF) then...
 
 
ibis the being
16:08 / 22.10.04
I've been in conversations with Republican family and friends who insist there were WMD, even that we FOUND them, and I just don't know what to say. My stepmother says, "there were missiles! They found twelve missiles!" - she listens to Rush Limbaugh and the local Rush-clone on the radio every day, which amounts to about 4 hours of propanganda per day. My friend says, "They found warplanes buried in the sand, you're telling me there are no WMD?" - he goes on to tell me he never reads the newspaper because they're all liberal liars, and accuses me of having got all my information from Fahrenheit 911 (not true).

So I'm not at all surprised at these poll results. I think the Bush supporters are just stubbornly sticking to what the White House told us last year. It's sort of telling that the Bushies are unwilling to accept that the original "intelligence reports" were untrue, even if they have to ignore all new information. It indicates that their support for Bush, while rigid, has a flimsy foundation - that's why they guard it so fiercely.
 
 
diz
19:29 / 22.10.04
i think it's more than that. i think that the divisions which two different American camps were willing to put aside in the afterglow of WW II and for the sake of the Cold War have resurfaced, with the help of a series of polarizing events (Vietnam and the civil rights movement, the Clinton presidency, and 9/11, the war(s), and the Bush presidency). Pat Buchanan was ahead of his time in 1992 in recognizing that we are now engaged in a culture war for the future of America.

our side has the advantage of being pro-science and less xenophobic. basically, we are an open society, and not only are we are less threatened by the opinions of foreigners, scientists, and academics, we value the input of people with different perspectives. however, all these competing influences and ideas make it difficult for us to get our shit together.

their side has the advantage of tribal loyalty and cultural homogeneity, which is why they're a movement and we're a loose coalition of movements. that has political advantages as you can see with the way the Bush machine functions like a political juggernaut rolling over the terrain. however, their disadvantage is the siege mentality that comes with that, the unwillingness to take into account dissenting opinions, and the insistence on orthodoxy in the face of outside opposition. all of this inhibits adaptation, because any change is a betrayal.

ultimately, we're going to win this, because our values are better suited to survival and success in the post-industrial, post-nationalist world that is coming, and because history always rolls over people who won't change. the question is how do we best contain the damage they're going to do before they die or become totally marginalized?
 
 
Malle Babbe
21:08 / 22.10.04
A very interesting (and at points scary) article that touches on these issues appeared last weekend in the New York Times Magazine (you'll need to sign in; I don't know if it is OK to post whole articles here).

It seems that the US is getting ready to split into the Reality-Based Community vs. the Faith-Based Community. Dubya's membership in the latter should be obvious; the power of prayer is now supposed to be able to protect unarmored fuel trucks in the Sunni Triangle.

Before anyone asks; yes I am registered to vote, and live in a battleground state that went blue in 2000.
 
 
ibis the being
17:45 / 24.10.04
I'm bumping this thread just because I read that NYT article on Bush's "faith-based" presidency and it's excellent (and I didn't need to sign in, but if anyone does use ciccio/ciccio). It's 10 pages long, every one fascinating. Here's one chilling passage --

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
 
 
Alex's Grandma
04:25 / 25.10.04
What's fascinating about that as a quote is that it sounds like something a Three year old child would say, if he or she had the relevant linguistic ability, ie, if they were about Twelve. While it looks to be true that the Republican party are in the business of manufacturing artificial realities, or at least versions of reality that are similar, but worse, than where everyone else lives, it still seems a bit shocking that whoever it was that was boasting about that, America's undeniable power, has got apparently no idea of how to exercise it at all, except as a thing in itself. Going on about creating new realities... Well fine, but to what end ? And just because you can do that, does it mean that you should ? And what would give you the right in any case ?

Are just some of the questions that Republican party in the States is now apparently *above.*

Really, God help us all if these idiots are allowed to persist.
 
 
Malle Babbe
11:40 / 25.10.04
But if you really want to find yourself lying awake at night, dig the following quote from that article:

And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. ''You think he's an idiot, don't you?'' I said, no, I didn't. ''No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!'' In this instance, the final ''you,'' of course, meant the entire reality-based community.

You have to admire the memetic coup that the GOP has accomplished in the past 20 years, making "intellectual" and "reality" into insults. However, with the Assault Weapons Ban being lifted (even though it was a real swiss cheese piece of legislation), and the rising tide of "I'm proud to be ignorant" in certain parts of this country, I'm starting to wonder if a Bush win next month will lead to armed bands of Bushites tearing through the countryside, killing everyone that wears glasses, Khmer-Rouge style.
 
 
diz
12:06 / 25.10.04
We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.

"here's where they think they can rewrite reality to fit their whims. here's what they don't understand about the world. here's where they overextend drastically as a result of that kind of hubris. here's where the United States collapses and takes international peace and security with it."

it's fun studying what the neocons do from the vantage point of the reality-based community.

I'm starting to wonder if a Bush win next month will lead to armed bands of Bushites tearing through the countryside, killing everyone that wears glasses, Khmer-Rouge style.

i would worry about that more if Bush loses and they feel like the government's been taken over by some godless liberal intellectual faggots who are going to invite Osama to rape their kids for Satan. that's what happened under Clinton. the real worry is that they'll start tearing out of the countryside and start blowing up more buildings and shooting people in the cities where all us liberal intellectuals live.
 
 
ibis the being
13:22 / 25.10.04
the real worry is that they'll start tearing out of the countryside and start blowing up more buildings and shooting people in the cities where all us liberal intellectuals live.

I don't know that that hasn't already started - Oklahoma City, abortion clinic bombings, the anthrax mail scare in 2001.

I read that part about "we don't like you" aloud to my SO. He's lived in both coasts and in the midwest, and his reaction to the passage was - "Well, yeah. They hate us. They HATE us" - he experienced that hostility firsthand, (and he's not even college-educated, just an "East Coaster" and more worldly than your average Midwesterner). Which is really just sad - it's like this insane new level of xenophobia.

Personally (though I'm from the Evil East Coast US) I come from a working class family - blue collar back through two generations to working class immigrants - and I'm offended by the idea that "busy working people" have to be equated with 'ignorant and uninformed.' That a factory worker should be sympathetic to his President's inability to speak coherently, because presumably the worker is an illiterate himself.

It also pisses me off as someone who's in the first generation of the family to get a degree - our grandfathers and fathers worked hard so that we could get a fine education, only to sneer at us for fancy talk and snobbery? We should stay poor and be stupid? - I don't think that's the American Dream. I think Bush would have us believe that because it makes his job easier.
 
 
rizla mission
13:45 / 25.10.04
The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.''

This absolutely blows my mind.. "reality-based community"? I mean, forgive me for over-simplifying, but what the fuck?? We have people in important positions now basically admitting "Yes, I make my decisions based on the logic of strange self-justifying fantasy world"..??

I mean, from the old post-chaos magick / invisibles type perspective the idea of the dominant political force in the USA declaring itself to be in direct opposition to "reality" would seem kinda cool.. little did we know I suppose..
 
 
Ganesh
14:15 / 25.10.04
Well, I'm a tad behind the times; I still find it weird that "liberal" and "feminist" are widely considered terms of abuse...
 
 
diz
15:05 / 25.10.04
I read that part about "we don't like you" aloud to my SO. He's lived in both coasts and in the midwest, and his reaction to the passage was - "Well, yeah. They hate us. They HATE us" - he experienced that hostility firsthand, (and he's not even college-educated, just an "East Coaster" and more worldly than your average Midwesterner). Which is really just sad - it's like this insane new level of xenophobia.

it's not just the Midwest, believe me. i'm from the East Coast originally, as well, but let me tell you, there's a world of difference between the podunk town in North Jersey where i grew up and the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where i went to high school. a certain part of the population just loathed me, and many others resented me and my opinions.

Personally (though I'm from the Evil East Coast US) I come from a working class family - blue collar back through two generations to working class immigrants - and I'm offended by the idea that "busy working people" have to be equated with 'ignorant and uninformed.' That a factory worker should be sympathetic to his President's inability to speak coherently, because presumably the worker is an illiterate himself.

It also pisses me off as someone who's in the first generation of the family to get a degree - our grandfathers and fathers worked hard so that we could get a fine education, only to sneer at us for fancy talk and snobbery? We should stay poor and be stupid? - I don't think that's the American Dream. I think Bush would have us believe that because it makes his job easier.

a lot of this is the death of the working class, or rather the transformation of the working class from the middle class to the working poor, especially when you consider that the decline of the working class more or less began as Vietnam was ending, as immigration restrictions were loosening up, and as the gay rights, feminist, and civil rights movements were gathering steam. most people (wrongly) blame the US defeat in Vietnam on "betrayal from within." in the minds of a lot of people, Baby Boomer student radicals and liberal protestors undermined the war effort, causing us to lose the war, and from their perspective, everything went to shit for them from there as liberals, homosexuals, uppity women, uppity blacks, and immigrants from strange countries started "taking over."

trying to point out that, if anything, the working class's loss of economic status has more to do with conservative economic policies than anything else doesn't really seem to work. it's become an article of faith, almost, that college-educated bleeding heart liberals lost the war and fucked over the working class. it's all displaced anger over the identity crisis prompted by Vietnam and the 60s and 70s era social movements.

Well, I'm a tad behind the times; I still find it weird that "liberal" and "feminist" are widely considered terms of abuse...

are they loaded the same way in the UK?
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
15:39 / 25.10.04
Not quite, I think, though I am sure that some Tories would like them to be...

The third party in Parliament is called the Liberal Democrats, after all, and I can't see that playing very well in the Republican US right now.

However - I have heard enough and read enough stories about the 'chattering classes', and about young women saying things like 'do you call yourself a feminist then?' to believe that similar impulses are at work. And, wrt the 'reality-based world' thing, it's worth remembering that Tony Blair's most recent justification for going to war was that he believed it was the right thing to do - you'll note again the implication that faith should be sufficient, irrespective of the actual facts of the matter.

I would still say that this is a symtpom of the government being far closer to the US administration than to the actual British people, but then I am a member of the metropolitan chattering classes myself, so what would I know? Things may be very different elsewhere in Britain - though I don't think it's as bad here as it is in the US, simply because Britain is a much, much more secular society. Pro-life vs. pro-choice is not really a political issue over here, for example.
 
 
Ganesh
16:03 / 25.10.04
are they loaded the same way in the UK?

'Feminist' not really, 'liberal' not at all. I've only gradually acclimatised to US usage through spending time on mostly-American message-boards.
 
 
PatrickMM
16:35 / 25.10.04
Great article. Living in New York, this America they're talking about, with 42 percent Evangelical or Born Again, seems completely foreign to me, but judging by the success of Bush, it's all too real. I'm actually laughing at some of the things in this article, the idea that Bush speaks directly from God, who apparently has a bit of a speech impediment, but then realize that they actually believe what they're saying.

The thing I find ironic is that the very reason Bush is so popular and these Evangelicals support him so much, 9/11, was actually the death of a bunch of people who these conservatives would probably consider unpatriotic liberal intellectuals. I don't get these people living out in Iowa who are apparently deathly afraid of a terrorist attack, to the point where we've got to go out and get Iraq, when in fact any terrorist attack is going to hit the coasts, where all the liberals live. Fahrenheit 9/11 had a pretty funny sequence with a little town who got a terror alert, and one woman claims they've got some big potential targets, including a Wal-Mart.
 
 
Malle Babbe
21:16 / 25.10.04
9/11, was actually the death of a bunch of people who these conservatives would probably consider unpatriotic liberal intellectuals.

That's why even though I was annoyed by Jerry Falwell's comments on 9/11 as God's Wrath, I have to give him credit for his honesty. Seeing conservatives getting misty-eyed over NYC these days is a bit like hearing a guy say, "You know, I always hated my ex-wife until the day a random psychopath broke into her home, beat her face in, and raped her. Now I can't get enough of the woman!"
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
09:46 / 27.10.04
No Bush Please, We're Ganesh are they loaded the same way in the UK?

'Feminist' not really, 'liberal' not at all.

Well, Jack Straw went through his sneering at 'Hampstead liberals' phase when he was Home Sec, and I'd be surprised if Blunkett hasn't said something similar. Didn't Blair just be more direct and say liberalism was wrong in some speech during the summer?
 
 
Ganesh
10:16 / 27.10.04
I'd assumed the query was a broad one relating to general (pejorative) use of these terms among the non-New Labour MP population...
 
 
diz
15:09 / 27.10.04
Seeing conservatives getting misty-eyed over NYC these days is a bit like hearing a guy say, "You know, I always hated my ex-wife until the day a random psychopath broke into her home, beat her face in, and raped her. Now I can't get enough of the woman!"

my favorite bit was Tom DeLay's proposal to have all the Republican convention delegates housed on a cruise ship in the harbor, with shuttles to the convention or something. you know, so that they could hold their convention near Ground Zero without actually having to encounter any of the liberals, blacks, and God-cursed Sodomites that infest the city. real cute.
 
 
ibis the being
16:59 / 27.10.04
The Bush Admin appears to be taking a page or two from Orwell's dystopia.

Compare this quote from that senior advisor also quoted upthread -

"...when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

With this passage from 1984 -

"You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us.
But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable."
 
  
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