A terrifying (and justified) commentary on the state of mind of Bush voters
Commentary: Leading a horse to water
By Shaun Waterman
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
Washington, DC, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- I have often wondered why so many people in the United States continue to support an administration that was so wrong about Iraq. Now I know. They just don't realize.
An invaluable survey from the Program on International Policy Attitudes -- a collaboration of the Center on Policy Attitudes and the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland University -- has revealed that almost three-quarters of those who support President Bush simply don't know the facts about Iraq.
Even after the final report of the Iraq Survey Group found that Iraq did not have a significant program to develop weapons of mass destruction, 72 percent of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD stockpiles or a major program for developing them. More alarmingly still, more than half labor under the misapprehension that most experts -- including the survey group's head, Charles Duelfer -- agree with them.
In reality of course, Duelfer found that, although Saddam Hussein appears to have tried to maintain elements of his biological and chemical programs, the sanctions imposed by the United Nations after the first Gulf War had been pretty successful in forcing him to destroy his stockpiles and abandon his efforts to produce more.
Similarly, 75 percent of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al-Qaida, and nearly two-thirds believe that clear evidence of this support has been found. Sixty percent of Bush supporters assume, again, that most experts agree with their erroneous beliefs, and more than half appear convinced -- incorrectly -- that this was the conclusion of the Sept. 11 commission.
In point of fact, the expert consensus -- a few fringe elements aside -- is that there were no operational ties between Iraq and al-Qaida, and that tentative efforts on both sides to forge a relationship were fatally handicapped by widely divergent ideologies, differing agendas and a toxic lack of trust.
How can one explain this extraordinary variance from reality?
The easy answer, of course, is to blame the media. And -- since my e-mail address has found its way onto a list being distributed by opponents of the president -- I am aware that many people take this easy way out. Apparently, newspapers and television news are such slavish handmaidens of right-wing corporate interests that they have failed in their duty to warn of the terrible truth of their president's moral and intellectual bankruptcy.
This is complete nonsense, as anyone who is actually obliged to read several newspapers a day and trawl the Internet at regular intervals for articles can attest. The fact is, if you could be bothered to find them, there were plenty of stories even in the run up to war -- and yes, even in the corporate-owned mainstream media -- that questioned the administration's claims about Iraq.
Now, you have to be prepared to actually ignore the front pages not to see the questions, doubts and downright refutations of the administration's happy claims about the situation in Iraq.
And that -- says Steven Kull, the director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes -- is precisely the point.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once famously said that the measure of a first-rate intellect is its ability to have two contradictory ideas at the same time. But for most of us, facts that contradict our worldview are uncomfortable things. Psychologists call this "cognitive dissonance."
"To support the president and to accept that he took the United States to war based on mistaken assumptions likely creates substantial cognitive dissonance," says Kull, "and leads Bush supporters to suppress awareness of unsettling information about prewar Iraq."
This tendency of Bush supporters to ignore information that challenges their assumptions can be seen outside the issue of Iraq, too.
Despite the overwhelming evidence, less than one-third of Bush supporters recognize that the majority of people in the world opposed the U.S. war in Iraq. More than one-quarter believes that global public opinion was behind the United States.
The survey found that Bush supporters also have other numerous misperceptions about the administration's international policy.
Majorities incorrectly assume that Bush supports the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the treaty banning land mines. An overwhelming three-quarters incorrectly assumes that he favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements.
Again, the survey respondents appear to be ignoring information that contradicts their own world-view.
"In all these cases," says Kull, "majorities of Bush supporters favor the positions they impute to Bush."
You can lead a horse to water, as the saying goes, but you cannot make it drink.
You can present all the facts you want, but at the end of the day, if people only hear what they want to, it may not matter how loud you are shouting.
By Shaun Waterman
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
Washington, DC, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- I have often wondered why so many people in the United States continue to support an administration that was so wrong about Iraq. Now I know. They just don't realize.
An invaluable survey from the Program on International Policy Attitudes -- a collaboration of the Center on Policy Attitudes and the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland University -- has revealed that almost three-quarters of those who support President Bush simply don't know the facts about Iraq.
Even after the final report of the Iraq Survey Group found that Iraq did not have a significant program to develop weapons of mass destruction, 72 percent of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD stockpiles or a major program for developing them. More alarmingly still, more than half labor under the misapprehension that most experts -- including the survey group's head, Charles Duelfer -- agree with them.
In reality of course, Duelfer found that, although Saddam Hussein appears to have tried to maintain elements of his biological and chemical programs, the sanctions imposed by the United Nations after the first Gulf War had been pretty successful in forcing him to destroy his stockpiles and abandon his efforts to produce more.
Similarly, 75 percent of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al-Qaida, and nearly two-thirds believe that clear evidence of this support has been found. Sixty percent of Bush supporters assume, again, that most experts agree with their erroneous beliefs, and more than half appear convinced -- incorrectly -- that this was the conclusion of the Sept. 11 commission.
In point of fact, the expert consensus -- a few fringe elements aside -- is that there were no operational ties between Iraq and al-Qaida, and that tentative efforts on both sides to forge a relationship were fatally handicapped by widely divergent ideologies, differing agendas and a toxic lack of trust.
How can one explain this extraordinary variance from reality?
The easy answer, of course, is to blame the media. And -- since my e-mail address has found its way onto a list being distributed by opponents of the president -- I am aware that many people take this easy way out. Apparently, newspapers and television news are such slavish handmaidens of right-wing corporate interests that they have failed in their duty to warn of the terrible truth of their president's moral and intellectual bankruptcy.
This is complete nonsense, as anyone who is actually obliged to read several newspapers a day and trawl the Internet at regular intervals for articles can attest. The fact is, if you could be bothered to find them, there were plenty of stories even in the run up to war -- and yes, even in the corporate-owned mainstream media -- that questioned the administration's claims about Iraq.
Now, you have to be prepared to actually ignore the front pages not to see the questions, doubts and downright refutations of the administration's happy claims about the situation in Iraq.
And that -- says Steven Kull, the director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes -- is precisely the point.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once famously said that the measure of a first-rate intellect is its ability to have two contradictory ideas at the same time. But for most of us, facts that contradict our worldview are uncomfortable things. Psychologists call this "cognitive dissonance."
"To support the president and to accept that he took the United States to war based on mistaken assumptions likely creates substantial cognitive dissonance," says Kull, "and leads Bush supporters to suppress awareness of unsettling information about prewar Iraq."
This tendency of Bush supporters to ignore information that challenges their assumptions can be seen outside the issue of Iraq, too.
Despite the overwhelming evidence, less than one-third of Bush supporters recognize that the majority of people in the world opposed the U.S. war in Iraq. More than one-quarter believes that global public opinion was behind the United States.
The survey found that Bush supporters also have other numerous misperceptions about the administration's international policy.
Majorities incorrectly assume that Bush supports the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the treaty banning land mines. An overwhelming three-quarters incorrectly assumes that he favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements.
Again, the survey respondents appear to be ignoring information that contradicts their own world-view.
"In all these cases," says Kull, "majorities of Bush supporters favor the positions they impute to Bush."
You can lead a horse to water, as the saying goes, but you cannot make it drink.
You can present all the facts you want, but at the end of the day, if people only hear what they want to, it may not matter how loud you are shouting.