Half
of Americans now say Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the United
States invaded the country in 2003 -- up from 36 percent last year, a Harris
poll finds.
Surprised? Not really. However, it's not that the Americans are
that stupid but the mainstream media has done an efficient job.
As simple as that. [via]
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The portion of the public that pays attention to translated documents filtering out of Iraq knows that the media downplayed Al Queda connections to Saddam. And after hearing for 3 years that there were no, none, zero, zip nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons... well except for one or two that we don't know where they came from, the sudden revelation that over 500 shells have been discovered made a significant chunk of the population smell a rat.
So the numbers spike and the MSM is shocked, shocked that their downplaying of the trickle of illegal munitions has led to blowback when it was discovered how badly they'd spun the facts.
The truth is that it's early days to figure out what's going on and a prudent man would quietly pay attention to the prospect of new evidence surfacing. After all, hidden ammo dumps from WW II still get discovered occasionally and one of the occupational hazards of French farming is the occasional injury from WW I chemical shells discovered in the fields.
I'm displeased at the idea of Americans, in general, being characterized as being stupid. I might suggest we are possibly not less stupid than any other population. Media do have an impact, granted.
As far as sane people (not brainwashed by the daily manipulation of overexposure to media) are concerned, there were no WMDs in Iraq and are not any. Attempts by Santorum to the contrary notwithstanding. The only fools who believe there are/were WMDs now or in contextually relevant times are, probably Fox viewers who do not look outside their own self-reinforcing communities of thought.
Now, as for the BOZO who commented before me, he ranks an example of the desperately partisan few who cling to any possible suggestion of WMD justification in the face of overwhelming (lack of) evidence to the contrary.
Does America have rural nuts who believe what nationalistic, ultraconservative wackos spew when trying to convince a naive populace? As sure as there are still Romanian villagers who remain convinced of an immiment Hungarian attack over Transylvania. Laughable, to be sure.
Harris polls are generally admirable in their attempts to get a rough sketch, but they are not infallible. I might humbly suggest this particular result was out of line. And I might agree the MSM (media) has done its job in promulgating the lie about WMD to help close the gap between statstical error and reality.
The main point, from my vantage, is that your readers hopefully will take this one tiny news blip with a grain of salt rather than lump Americans as being "stupid."