Getting The Government We Deserve

Good news for Bush, Americans are uninformed:

A majority of Americans still believes Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with al-Qa'ida and that Iraq either had weapons of mass destruction or a programme for developing them, according to a new opinion poll. ...

A staggering 82 per cent of respondents believed most experts supported the notion that Iraq was providing "substantial support" to al-Qa'ida - a contention that President Bush has been forced to disavow. ...

The poll also showed a correlation between people's ignorance and their political affiliation. Among those who believed WMD had been found in Iraq, 72 per cent said they would vote to re-elect Mr Bush in November and 23 per cent said they supported his Democratic challenger, John Kerry. Among those who knew that no WMD had been found,74 per cent supported Mr Kerry and 23 per cent backed the President.

I blame the teachers' unions.

(Tip: Prof. Brian Leiter.)

Comments

[Oldman]

lol. Me too. And I blame the school bureacracy, and the Dept. of Ed. All my life teachers been harping at me that they were teaching critical thinking skills. Well where are they now?

We are indeed getting the government that "we deserve".

It's just sad that an even greater catastrophe will be needed to expose how monumentally idiotic the people we have in charge are.

[Mithras]

All my life teachers been harping at me that they were teaching critical thinking skills.

Yeah, they said they taught me some, too, but look how I turned out.

It's just sad that an even greater catastrophe will be needed to expose how monumentally idiotic the people we have in charge are.

Um, aren't you making a pretty large assumption there? Namely, that another catastrophe will cause a reaction that is 180 degrees opposite the one caused by the last catastrophe? In any sane world, lots of heads in the administration would have rolled long before now, or else Bush's polls would be in the single digits for failing to do so.