perfidy

Once again, huzzah and kudos to Bootsy to pointing me to this depressing article from Editor & Publisher. It discusses the media's coverage of the Iraq crisis prior to the actual war, suggests that the American public is horribly misguided about the war in Iraq, and blames the media for making the situation worse. I'm not going to argue with the media-bashing, but more worrying are the poll numbers. Check it out: 

In a Jan. 7 Knight Ridder/Princeton Research poll, 44% of respondents said they thought "most" or "some" of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers were Iraqi citizens. Only 17% of those polled offered the correct answer: none. This was remarkable in light of the fact that, in the weeks after 9/11, few Americans identified Iraqis among the culprits. . . . In the same sample, 41% said that Iraq already possessed nuclear weapons, which not even the Bush administration claimed. Despite being far off base in crucial areas, 66% of respondents claimed to have a "good understanding" of the arguments for and against going to war with Iraq. . . . 

The same survey found that 57% of those polled believed Saddam Hussein helped terrorists involved with the 9/11 attacks, a claim the Bush team had abandoned. A March 7-9 New York Times/CBS News Poll showed that 45% of interviewees agreed that "Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks," and a March 14-15 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found this apparently mistaken notion holding firm at 51%. . . . 

Carroll Doherty, editor of the Pew Research Center, told me last week: "It's very rare to find a perception that's been so disputed by experts yet firmly held by the public. There's almost nothing the public doesn't believe about Saddam Hussein."

Oh, for God's sake. It's not old news that the American people will believe anything, but this is remarkable. 

Well, maybe it's not so remarkable. 77% of Americans believe angels exist. Half of Americans believe that humans once co-existed with dinosaurs. Reportedly, 60% of Americans believe in psychic powers. Luckily, only 7% of Americans believe The King is still alive. 

All of this only proves that public opinion, whether for or against the war, is not rooted as much in facts as in each person's personal interpretation of history. And, as we all know, history is not necessarily fact-based.