And another thing...
Did the poll happen to mention what Kerry supporters believed regarding legitimacy and/or sanctity of the UN oil-for-food scandal?
So far as I know, Bush/Cheney never argued in the buildup to war against Iraq that the US should go to war because oil-for-food (OFF) revenues had enabled Saddam Hussein to acquire money he might one day use to buy equipment to build WMD...eventually.
The $11 billion allegedly siphoned off had almost no real effect on Hussein's WMD capability. Look at the Duelfer report. He had no capability and all programs were in serious decay since 1991.
I'm blogging about this today, but the bottom line is the US retained item-by-item scrutiny of "dual use" purchases and blocked Iraqi import of virtually anything that could possibly have been used to make WMD.
Any "threat" would have required the sanctions to have been ended.
Not to mention that even Duelfer says Iraq's WMD programs served domestic political purposes and threatened Iran.
The US could have relied upon sanctions and deterrence for the foreseeable future. There was no threat justifying war.
Period.
There's been a lot of talk on conservative and liberal blogs over the last week about the claim that Bush voters are "stupid." Putting aside the emotions fueling the vituperative language, which I think will fade with time, I think that this strikes at the heart of Democratic confusion over last week's vote. That is, Democrats feel that an electorate informed of the facts will hear and recognize the legitimacy of Democratic policies. The model is: voters choose the candidate who presents the best case for leading the country. However, that model fails if voters are going to be so willfully blind to the facts supporting a candidate's argument. What do you do? I guess revise the model and play their game, but that's a shame.
In psychology, a delusion is simply "an erroneous belief that is held in the face of evidence to the contrary."
More simply, a delusion is "a mistaken or unfounded opinion."
Delusions are misperceptions or perhaps self-deceptions.
Thus, deluded voters are not stupid and I'm not sure they are "willfully" mislead either. After all, the Bush side devoted a lot of resources over a long period of time to constructing the delusions.
I agree with you that the "stupid" label is inaccurate and is mostly being thrown about in charges on the right about the tone of talk on the left. But what is the mechanism by which the delusions are developed? Perhaps it is not so much about information control but about careful selection of information outlets. John Dean related an anecdote in a recent Findlaw article about Bush voters whose misinformation on Iraq came direct from the pulpit, which the voters regarded as sufficient authority to squelch any willingness to entertain contrary views. Can the Democrats develop an equally authoritative source for disseminating information to voters?
I'm not conceding that Bush/Republicans intentionally misled voters. But are you saying that no one ever voted for a Democrat based on incorrect or misleading information? Because it would be wrong, for example, to convince and old lady that Republicans will take away her social security check. Or that a teacher or union member receives literature indicating that a GOP victory would likely result in job losses. Give me a break Rodger, if you think the Left (Dems and interest groups) has never successfully tried to persuade voters with scare tactics, one-sided policy assessments, and questionable stats.
Further, I'm stunned that qualified prof like yourself would assert that the survey results constitute evidence of voting record. That's a huge leap, don't you think? Are there not Bush voters who decided based on domestic or social issues? Further, are there not Bush voters who would rather have him leading the War on Terror, *despite* the problems in Iraq?
Wait, maybe if these delusional voter read the Duelfer Report the way you presented it, they would understand. So just pull out the 2-4 sentences you want, and insert ellipses where part of sentence doesn't fit your argument. Great card cutting.
Well, since it began in September 2003 this blog has been overwhelmingly about the way Iraq has been debated, so I can focus on this PIPA survey if I want.
And I did point out that it wasn't an exit poll, though you present no reason to doubt its accuracy. Even if Bush voters were concerned primarily about other issues, very many were deluded about Iraq.
And I didn't distort Duelfer. Iraq had no WMD program. I can repeat that over-and-over and it's still true. And Duelfer says this unambiguously.
I devoted another post to the questions of Iraqi intentions and oil-for-food. Those were pretty weak arguments for urgent war.
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