Some of the People, All of the Time

Via Brendan Nyhan, a great Janet Elder article on public misconceptions about Iraq and the manipulation of people's false beliefs for political purposes:

Some conservative political groups, seeking to continue the policies of the Bush Administration, are capitalizing on the murky understanding of some voters about who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks and why the United States went to war in Iraq.

One such group, Freedom's Watch, which has ties to the White House, ran television ads in the Philadelphia market and others around the sixth anniversary of the attack — when Gen. David H. Petraeus was also delivering his report to Congress on the progress of the war — suggesting a connection between the war in Iraq and the terrorist attacks. [. . .]

One of the most striking poll findings is the number of people who continue to think Saddam Hussein was behind the Sept. 11 attacks. Depending on how it is asked, more than a third of Americans say Saddam Hussein was personally involved in those attacks. In a New York Times/CBS News Poll in September, 33 percent of the respondents said Saddam Hussein was “personally” involved. In June, when Princeton Survey Research, polling for Newsweek, asked if “Saddam Hussein’s regime was directly involved in planning, financing or carrying out the terrorist attacks,” 41 percent said yes.

There was a time, though, when a majority of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. In a Times/CBS News poll in April 2003, just after the war began, 53 percent of Americans said Saddam Hussein was personally involved. That wide perception didn’t last. By September of that year, 43 percent said Saddam Hussein was involved.

This is a big structural failing of the American elite. It reflects in part the fact that conservative elites have refused to play the role of honest brokers, the preference of the right's main institutions to propagandize their audience rather than seeking to inform them with an honest, factually accurate presentation of the hawkish view of Middle East policy. It also reflects a large failure of our non-ideological institutions, a completely inability of "the establishment" to succeed in setting national discourse on an even keel. And last it reflects the fact that for several years the main opposition institutions in the United States -- most of all the Democratic Party -- failed for years to aggressively push back. For the year months or so after 9/11, "respectable" folks were expected to spend more time and energy worrying about marginal leftists than about the dangerous radicals peddling made-up facts who just so happened to control the institutions of government.

Comments

The idiot americans who believe this crap have to held accountable as well.

Posted by judson | October 22, 2007 3:55 PM

Both sides are equally to blame. Excessive partisanship is the problem. If reasonable moderates from both sides come together, the problems could be fixed easily.

Posted by Joe Klein, David Broder, et al | October 22, 2007 3:55 PM

Big deal. The American public are misinformed about lots of things, owing to the incomeptence or malefaction of lots of people. For example, almost half of the public believes that the US is in a rescession. That reflects in part the fact that liberal elites have refused to play the role of honest brokers, the preference of the left's main institutions to propagandize their audience rather than seeking to inform them with an honest, factually accurate presentation of the economy. It also reflects a large failure of our non-ideological institutions, a completely inability of "the establishment" to succeed in setting national discourse on an even keel.

And whether the US is in a rescession is far more important to most people than whether Saddam was "personally involved" in 9/11. And yet the left and media are perfectly happy to present the facts about the economy dishonestly.

[I'll save you the rest of how the left is worse than the right, etc., etc., etc.]

Posted by Al | October 22, 2007 3:58 PM

Al, what a silly comparison: did you really use actual brain cells on it?

when people tell pollsters that they believe we are in a recession, what they are saying, through the available mechanism, is "my economic circumstances look grim and i see little chance for improvement." in other words, there is a perfectly rational basis for their comment and it has nothing to do with your attempt to mimic matthew (find me a "liberal elite" who is saying that we are "in a recession." i'd love to see one).

on the other hand, when more than fringe lunatics believe that saddam had something to do with 9/11, it's perfectly clear why they believe it: becuase the likes of bush, cheney, and a host of right-wingers have artfully constructed statements to encourage them to believe in order to build support first for invading iraq and then to stay on in the middle of a civil war.

actually, of course, whether we are in a recession or not is irrelevant to most people: if you didn't have a job or any money in the late '90s, it didn't matter how much the economy was booming, and if you're a well-compensated individual with a very high degree of net worth, it doesn't matter if there is a recession. in short, a "recession" is a label for aggregate economic performance.

on the other hand, it's enormously important to whether we stay or go in iraq if saddam had something to do with 9/11.

Posted by howard | October 22, 2007 4:10 PM

Maybe Megan can write a post on how this misconception isn't the responsibility of the republican party or the conservative movement.

Posted by mickslam | October 22, 2007 4:16 PM

“Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen”

Posted by Njorl | October 22, 2007 4:22 PM

Al, what a silly comparison: did you really use actual brain cells on it?

Yes, it's remarkable how much stupider Al has gotten. Before he used to be a fairly intelligent liar. Now he's just another dreary moron. The deterioration has been so fast it makes me wonder whether everyone's okay for him at home.

Posted by grh | October 22, 2007 4:23 PM

“Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen”

Oh, ha ha.

Hopefully you're just being facetious. Blaming both parties equally is extremely corrosive.

Posted by Bill | October 22, 2007 4:34 PM

Hey, at least he didn't say "I beat you because I love you."

Posted by Reality Man | October 22, 2007 5:28 PM

That's silly, howard. Whether we are in a rescession is a fact, no different than whether Saddam was directly responsible for 9/11. It is no more a proxy for "my economic circumstances look grim and i see little chance for improvement" than telling a pollster that Saddam was responsible for 9/11 is a proxy for "Saddam is a bad person."

Moreover, you are doubly wrong in this case, because polls show that people are more sanguine about their personal economic situation than they are about the economic situation of the country in general. Thus, the facts show that if a question about whether the country is in a rescession was really a question about the respondents' personal economic situation, you would find a far, far better response.

But it is perfectly clear why so many people are duped by the left-wing media into believing that we are in a rescession - the media is completely obcessed with the idea that the economy is so bad that we must be in one. There are zillions of articles about how bad the economy is, which are "artfully constructed statements to encourage" people to believe that we are already in a rescession.

There is simply far more evidence that the left wing and the MSM (I repeat myself, of course) is willfully deceiving the American public about the state of the country's economy than there is about Bush saying anything causing people to believe that Saddam was personally involved in 9/11.

I know, above I said I'd forego the statement that the left-wing is much much worse in deceiving people than the right, but you've gone nd caused me to state it. Sorry about that.

(find me a "liberal elite" who is saying that we are "in a recession." i'd love to see one)

Find me a conservative elite who is saying that Saddam was "personally involved" in 9/11. I'd love to see one.

Posted by Al | October 22, 2007 6:58 PM

Of course, the evidence indicates Al hasn't just become stupider. Ever since the 2006 elections, his tribe's reduced circumstances have driven him into a constant state of hysteria.

On the one hand it's funny to watch him stamp his little feet at the unfairness of the world. Yet at the same time it's a bit sad to see what's happened to one of the blog world's truly legendary hacks.

Posted by grh | October 22, 2007 7:14 PM

Big deal.

Exactly. I mean, c'mon, what's the big deal? It's just a bunch of people who are not Al being blown the fuck up for a shitty-ass crazy fucked-up expensive in terms of human lives, money, and the future of The Western World, war. Really, so what if those people who are not Al are in serious, fucked up Kafka-on-Crack peril in a bogus war sold on a bunch of bullshit from assholes like "Freedom's Watch," "Little Green Footballs," "Dick" Cheney, and others who make Orwell look like a pathetic piker.

Indeed, heh, rinse, repeat: Big deal.

Posted by Not Al | October 22, 2007 7:56 PM

al, as grh noted, your quality meter is declining (could deco's injury be that devastating to your synapses?)!

you're confusing the polling data (as well as the economic reality) in pursuit of a nonsensical point.

as for the conservative elite, well, they are the masters of the artfully constructed sentences from which the 30 per cent have drawn their notions without ever flat out saying themselves the literal words "saddam was behind 9/11." it's a very crafty technique, also known as "propaganda," which is matthew's point in the first place.

Posted by howard | October 22, 2007 7:59 PM

Find me a conservative elite who is saying that Saddam was "personally involved" in 9/11. I'd love to see one.

Cheney has said that Saddam "had long-established ties with al Qaeda" and that Iraq (which was under his personal control...you know, the whole monstrous tyrant thing) "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11"

Done and done. Better trolling please.

Posted by nolaboyd | October 22, 2007 10:08 PM

Find me a conservative elite who is saying that Saddam was "personally involved" in 9/11. I'd love to see one.

Indeed. This is "pretty well confirmed." But "big deal" right?

Posted by Not Al | October 22, 2007 10:17 PM

Al seems to be ducking Matthew's point -- that the Republicans and their supporters have repeatedly misled American citizens in a major way with deceitful claims.

Rather than adddress Matthew's point, Al brings up a irrelevant red herring and runs the discussion off into the weeds.

And even Al's point is not all that accurate. Ignoring his inability to spell "recession", Al fails to realize that, Over the past several months, There have been several prominent authorities warning of the POSSIBILITY of a recession. Authorities who are hardly "liberal". e.g., Alan Greenspan.

Or "Mad Dog" Jim Cramer's famous meltdown back in August when he said Bernanke had no idea how bad things were -- and that the Fed needed to loosen up interest rates. A quietly murmured suggestion (heh heh ) that the Fed leaped to follow. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWksEJQEYVU

But the smart money knew things were turning to crap in the financial markets over 8 months ago. As shown by the yield curve inverting back around the first of the year -- a sign that massive amounts of wealth were fleeing to the safety of Treasury Bonds due to some unreported -- at that time -- calamity.

See the heads-up I posted here back in December:
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2006/12/the_sweet_sweet_fed.php#comment-119132

We have since learned just how badly the china is rattling and why. E.g, the heavy exposure several major firms have in the subprime market and the threat of default on $Billions of mortages as ARM's climb --especially if the economy worsens and people lose jobs. And with Hedge funds, the inmates are running the asylum.

Yes, the Fed can stimulate the economy by cutting rates. But the Fed is in a bind because the dollar is turning into smelly cat shit even as we speak -- and rate cuts accelerate that devaluation.

People don't realize that George W Bush and the Republicans have (a) dumped roughly $50,000 of debt onto middle class households in the past 6 years and (b) cut the value of the middle class's life savings --denominated in dollars --by about 30 percent.

The silver lining of the Bush Administration is that he has really fucked millions of middle class Republican households -- I'm talking about being sodomized with a telephone pole, kiddies.

And those Republicans are too fucking stupid to realize it yet.

Kinda like those big dinosaurs who would have a big chunk of their ass bitten out by Tyrantosaurus Rex -- but not realize it for a half an hour because it took that long for the nervous signal to travel to their little pea brains.

Posted by Don Williams | October 22, 2007 11:05 PM

"one of the blog world's truly legendary hacks."

Hey! I resemble that remark!

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 22, 2007 11:38 PM

I haven't been following the economy - my economic condition is always so bad it doesn't matter if it's a recession - but I DO see a lot of news stories intimating things are about to meltdown.

Gee - perfect timing for Bush to attack Iran and spike oil prices into the stratosphere! AND piss off China so they dump the dollar...

Maybe we'll get lucky and some OTHER rich people who don't work for the oil companies and who don't want that to happen (are there any?) will take Georgie aside and explain politely to him what will happen to him and the Republicans in 2008 if he does attack Iran.

I wouldn't count on it, though.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 22, 2007 11:45 PM

Also, the fascinating thing is how the exact same scenario is playing all over again with regard to Iran - except instead of 9/11 (in most cases), the Bushies are blaming Iran for the situation in Iraq.

A few true nitwits are trying to blame Iran for 9/11, too, but very few people are listening - mostly because the "Iraq caused 9/11" meme is too strong.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 22, 2007 11:51 PM

MY is dead on about the "structural failure of the political elite". He's right in each of the three parts he describes: the conservative elite's preference for propagandizing its base rather than presenting the factual hawk's case; the failure of nonideological institutions to make a dent in the discourse; and the failure of the liberal elite to push back. And I'm glad to see MY's frank recognition that there is an elite, that it's inevitable, and that the elite's failure to recognize any sense of responsibility for its role has devastating consequences in a democracy.

What troubles me is that this "structural failure" may stem from deep underlying forces -- mainly changes in the way that the media operate, and in the way that vast flows of money shape the political landscape. And that these structural shifts actually make it increasingly impossible for anyone to play the role of "honest broker". Elite institutions like the Center for Foreign Relations can't maintain their intellectual honesty when they're being infiltrated and manipulated by a concerted neo-con effort. And the failure of Democrats to "push back" which Matt cites stems to some extent from their attempts to try to play by old rules of responsible treatment of information, in an environment where all information was being turned into propaganda. The Democrats will increasingly be forced to propagandize their information more effectively as they aspire to return to power. And that leads me to worry that even with a Democratic resurgence, elites will have to continue to act "irresponsibly", in the sense of continuing to propagandize the base rather than treating information and policy debates seriously.

Posted by brooksfoe | October 23, 2007 6:07 AM

How is this a structural failure? Seems to me that the elite have profited very well since 9/11 by relying on the ignorance or indifference of the public.
This is the way they want it.

Posted by Chester | October 23, 2007 9:51 AM

Matt: "This is a big structural failing of the American elite."

In fact, this is a massive propaganda success of the American elite. Temporary, at least.

Successful, like the perception that Grenada, Nicaragua and Panama were major threats to US national security.

To the American "elite", intervention in Iraq was much more desirable than more terrorist-chasing in Afghanistan. After all, Afghanistan has no real resources and is not that desirable as an economic playing field. Iraq, on the other hand, seemed to offer all the goods - oil, military bases, markets.

And an opportunity to punish deviance from the norms desired by the elites. Not on the basis of human rights, but on the basis of lacking a cooperative attitude.

Posted by fabius | October 23, 2007 1:35 PM