Thursday, October 21, 2004

Bush Supporters: Not In Touch With Reality

From Yglesias, referencing PIPA:
[Bush supporters] think he supports stuff he doesn't actually support but which they do support, and because they think Iraq had actual WMD (they didn't), that Duelfer discovered evidence of major WMD programs (he didn't), that most experts believe Iraq gave substantial aid to al-Qaeda (they don't), that world opinion was either behind the Iraq War or closely divided (it wasn't), and that world opinion is either behind Bush or closely divided (it's for Kerry 2 to 1).
So why are these people so misinformed you may wonder? This answer makes a lot of sense:
'The roots of the Bush supporters' resistance to information,' according to Steven Kull, 'very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake. This appears to have created a powerful bond between Bush and his supporters--and an idealized image of the President that makes it difficult for his supporters to imagine that he could have made incorrect judgments before the war, that world public opinion could be critical of his policies or that the President could hold foreign policy positions that are at odds with his supporters.'

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