Ignorant voters more likely to support Bush on Iraq

When I read the poll that said something like a quarter to a third of the respondents thought there were Iraqi nationals on the planes on 9/11? THAT was god-damned depressing. I don't care if you're a bigger hawk than Andre Dawson, you can't be happy reading that.

The blog where I first read this blame the media. My gut instinct was to blame the Administration, for linking the two without evidence. But the Administration never said anything about Iraqis being on the planes.

How is that even possible, to have that many people so wrong about something literally the whole country had branded onto their memories forever? That's like thinking the Vietnamese bombed Pearl Harbor.

Unless I missed a big break in the 9/11 case? Yeah, I didn't think so.

 

Where's your ****************** God now?

The poll doesn't show how many ignorant voters are against the war does it?

I would at least think most of the posters in this forum fall into the 1/3 of non-ignorant voters who support the war. Heck, your item posted here said that 2/3 saying they had a grasp of the issues (not 2/3 in support of war) which could include all sides, indifferent, pro or con. Then 1/2 of of 2/3 is not really a majority is it?

It is simple bias in reporting. I will check out the link to better understand the whole picture because you may have picked the portions you liked best, which I have already shown to be less than that simple.

I am saying this for one reason. You all know superdave is attempting to tilt the conversation into his anti-war position by letting you all know that if you talk about the war in some positive manner, you automaticly are to be lumped into said ignorant group.

Go ahead and spin away, dave. This topic wasn't even worth its own thread as we have many threads with war topics. It is some pre-emptive personal attack to any one who is in favor if the war with weapons of mass generalizations and this naked aggression will not be tolerated. I am sick and tired of these tactics.

If you can't debate without making the other poster the issue, then maybe you need to find a forum where everyone agrees with you. Believe me, we all missed Ian when he went missing.

I mean, you want the right wingers on that wall. You need then on that wall.

 

The liberals love ignoramuses when they have trouble voting for Gore

 

> The poll doesn't show how many ignorant voters
> are against the war does it?

It doesn't say how many ignorant voters are for the war either. It does say that people who were anti war were more likely to have correct knowledge.

> It is simple bias in reporting. I will check out the
> link to better understand the whole picture

How can you say it is biased when you haven't even read it? In fact, the parts superdave quoted are buried in the bottom of the article, and were not mentioned in the title and the subtitle even though they were the most unique and insightful parts of the article.

> I am saying this for one reason. You all know
> superdave is attempting to tilt the conversation
> into his anti-war position by letting you all know
> that if you talk about the war in some positive
> manner, you automaticly are to be lumped into
> said ignorant group.

He could just as easily be saying that polls showing that Americans are mostly for war of some kind are not to be used as justification for war because of gross misinformation and/or misunderstanding.

 

Reporting (as in dave's report).

That said, you had better believe I read that bad boy. It sheds insight to some real people with real issues, but to mix in real numbers with such weak comments like "The informed public is considerably less hawkish about war with Iraq than the public as a whole."

Yea, the informed public and less hawkish doesn't really help me take a quality count.

"For instance, exactly half of those surveyed said that one or more of the terrorist hijackers were Iraqi citizens. In fact, none was." (emphasis mine)

This alone shows that 1/2 of Amercians (in this sample) are ignorant. It does not say that 1/2 of hawkish Americans are ignorant. So, by this point with 1/2 of the people polled being so stupid, the poll itself has little merit except for intimate portraits of real life folks where 1/2 of them are too stupid to have any opinion anyway.

 

My God, that is one of the most biased reporting jobs on a poll I have ever read. Here is the LEAD paragraph:

With U.S. troops mustering in the Persian Gulf and the nation on the cusp of war with Iraq, Americans in overwhelming numbers oppose unilateral U.S. military action, a national poll conducted last week for Knight Ridder newspapers found.

Overwhelming? 59% opposing the US going alone is overwhelming?? Much of that 59 percent are actually people who SUPPORT the war but would not favor the US going alone.

Here's the 3rd paragraph:

A robust majority of Americans -- 83 percent -- would support going to war if the United Nations backed the action. But support for war dwindles rapidly without U.N. approval.

Let me get this straight...OVERWHELMING opposition is defined as 59%, of which many of those are actual supporters of war. However, 83% is merely "robust" support, even though EVERY SINGLE ONE of the 83 percent SUPPORT the war. Then, he even immediately throws in a dig that "support for war dwindles rapidly with UN approval...". For crying out loud, that guy should be fired on the spot for injecting his views into a poll. Where did this idiot go to school, Clown State University?

 

Re: Re: Where's your ****************** God now?

Don't even start giving me a lecture in article pontification when you and I both were addressing a certain few issues you decided to seperate from the whole article. I addressed your report, as in book report or in this case article report. Ironic it was that the article was about opposition to a possible war if the US went alone.

READ:
Majority opposes unilateral Iraq war
Nation divided on whether Bush stated case clearly
BY MARTIN MERZER
mmerzer@herald.com

You see, after I burned your strawman to a crisp you come and try the Dante Mind Trick and act like you were being true to the entire article, willing to touch all the issues in the article then play the reading conprehension card to put in your cute little sig file when you made a point to single out a few issues. I suggest you put this there: D'oh! - The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

I mean, you didn't even get the "facts" correct when you stated that "Ignorant voters more likely to support Bush on Iraq". You then decided to avoid defending your original position, avoided reading (and you did read my second post as your reply has the Re: Where's your ****************** God now? in the title) my second post. Sack up either way. Sack up to the fact that you are wrong in the determination of what those poll numbers meant or sack up and defend your position. Oh yea, you took option #3: try to make fun of people who challange your position.

Read as in past tense.

I have been more than willing to say, hey, I finally get your point, agreed or not. I wish you could try and return the favor.

I've said what I wanted (maybe not because these quote features suck) and hope you address the isues at hand. In case you missed it, it is not whether or not I read the freaking article you so claimed to be about ignorant voters.

 

Re: Re: Ignorant voters more likely to support Bush on Iraq

Uhhh... support for war does drop. Alot. In fact, just half of the number of people who support a UN-approved action would also support a unilateral US war. 80% vs 41%.

A 50% drop in support is pretty substantial. Most certainly outside of the margin of error for the poll.

 

Re: Re: Re: Where's your ****************** God now?

I really dislike having to quote myself here, but this should be a bigsoccer politics forum rule.

If you use, reference or quote an article you need to distinguish clearly what are your words and what are the views of the article author. If you use it as a new thread, the title of the article needs to used.

It just shows clarity and respect to the writer. I mean, I could have started a thread that was titled 83 percent of Americans would support going to war and provided said link.

We can't post entire articles due to copyright issues, so by default we should keep true the writer's intentions by not linking our views and passing them as the reported news.

The article in question was weak sauce and it shows true due to the fact that dave decided to select the parts he liked best and pass it along as hawks = ignorant slobs...Which was his initial intention.

 

Re: Re: Re: Ignorant voters more likely to support Bush on Iraq

Yea, but is a 50% drop served by the usage of "dwindles rapidly"? Those are just words, but point taken.

I don't think dave would be willing to defend the article if based on the author's writing ability. Then again, it just might fall to dave's reading level.

 

I want to address the two items that Dave originally posted from a research point of view (since I do software support for a research lab and am working on my Masters in Human Factors Engineering)...

Unsurprising. People commonly grossly overestimate their own knowledge base. Leads to poor decision making.

I think what's happening here is that people are reading into this what they think is being said, rather than what is actually being said.

It doesn't say that hawkish people are dumb. It does say that there is a significant statistical correllation between being poorly informed and being hawkish. Any individual person can be both well-informed and hawkish - there is nothing here excluding that.

What is likely happening - and I'd have to see the data to be certain - is that people are overestimating their knowledge of the situation, and their poor intel gives them a false sense of security in their decision (pro/against war). The obvious piece of bad info is the "9/11 terrorist from Iraq" bit.

The data itself doesn't make a value judgement on a decision. Being ignorant of the details doesn't imply "dumb", it just implys being ignorant of the details.

 

Just because the Admin. has never stated explicitly that there were Iraqis on the planes does not get them off the hook for this, Dan. The continued insinuation of the link is truly to blame here. Notice, Bush, et al, have never once stated clearly that Iraqis have NOT been linked to 9/11 either. They clearly are loving this successful disinformation campaign, and it's working. Not quite as dramatic or ingenious as the incubator baby murders from last time around, though.

 

I agree with this, and I think the Administration is doing a serious disservice to the country.

But, I've got to blame the people for this. If the Bush Administration insinuated that the British won the Revolutionary War and we've been a colony all this time, you could blame the Administration and their shills for repeating the lie, but why would anyone believe it? I've got to put 9/11 in that category, at least for our generation. There's no freaking excuse. I could almost, barely, maybe see "Saddam was involved, somehow, I just don't know how." But to say that there were Iraqis on the planes? It wasn't a state secret who the hijackers were. People had to actively forget what they knew in order to believe something that the Bush Administration didn't actually say. And that's even beyond Orwellian.

 

Ok, someone missed the class on polling. Legitimate polls are done in a scientific manner and randomly select their sample. Meaning that the sample, by and large, reflects the general US population. I'm going to believe this is a pretty legit poll because it was organized by a serious, non-partisan news group (Knight-Ridder) and had a 3% margin of error.

The fact that half the people in this poll believed that Iraqis were on the plane means that about half the people in the country do as well.

 

Re: Re: Ignorant voters more likely to support Bush on Iraq

If a politician gets 59% of the vote, he won the election overwhelmingly, so yes I think it's appropriate.

As for the use of "robust" in the second instance, did it occur to you that perhaps they were trying to avoid using the same word over and over?

I mean, to use the word "overwhelming" an overwhelming number of times would tend to overwhelm the reader, don't you think?

 

Re: Re: Re: Ignorant voters more likely to support Bush on Iraq

You might say it dwindles.

 

Ignorant people are always more likely to support the President's viewpoint because the President has the most media exposure and is able to drive his point to the American people. I can remember similar polls when people were asked if the opposed Republican proposals to cut medicare, medicaid and social security. When people were given the facts, most supported Republican proposals.

 

Re: Re: Re: Ignorant voters more likely to support Bush on Iraq

1. The word "overwhelming" trumps "robust", by far. Had he switched the words to say a "robust" 59% and "overwhelming" 83% then I would have no problem with it. He purposely is trying to emphasize the 59% over the 83%.

2. Many of the 59% actually SUPPORT the war effort, they just don't want the US going alone. The point being that 83% FAVOR the war effort and THAT should be the lead of the article.

 

That is actually my point.

The poll is moot because the nation is so freaking ignorant! That said, the exact wording does prove that one-half of ALL POLLED, not just people who support Bush, are ignorant.

Being ignorant is nothing to ashamed of when you consider that (as dave said, go figure he would try and change the subject) not every person is informed on every issue. I agree that even stupid people can be informed on certain issues. A broken clock is correct twice a day!

Now, Dave and the article's author should be angry with half of the nation is so freaking ignorant and not taking the obvious cheap shot in linking the right, Bush, war and ignorance. It is misleading and only a small portion of the article, but dave seems to be happy to continue the Saddam style propaganda.

 

> The poll is moot because the nation is so freaking
> ignorant!

The poll isn't moot. You just have to be careful what conclusions you draw from it.

> That said, the exact wording does prove that
> one-half of ALL POLLED, not just people who
> support Bush, are ignorant.

That is not what the poll said at all. Who do you think is more likely to believe that Iraqis were on the planes, people pro war or anti war? The article also made it very clear that those pro war tend to be more ignorant than those against war. It did not provide any absolute knowledge measurement at all except for the Iraqis on planes question, which was never broken down into which group had the wrong info.

> Now, Dave and the article's author should be
> angry with half of the nation is so freaking
> ignorant and not taking the obvious cheap shot
> in linking the right, Bush, war and ignorance. It is
> misleading and only a small portion of the article,
> but dave seems to be happy to continue the
> Saddam style propaganda.

The small portion is not a lie, nor is it countered by the rest of the article, nor is it trivial. It is an important fact about the nature of war support in this nation. You cannot dismiss it just because you don't like it. I am sure that in the White House they know about this and are using that data to modify how they proceed.

 

Ok, I did some digging and found a broad description of the data. The raw data is hard to find.

------------
Our awareness/informed scale was based on the following 4 questions:
1. Were any Iraqi citizens were 9/11 hijackers?
2. Pres. Bush won Congressional approval for military force against Iraq?
3. Iraq agreed to weapons inspections?
4. U.S. administration has publicly released evidence of Iraq - 9/11 link?
Respondents who answered 3 out of 4 correctly were considered well informed, at least 1 out of 4 correct Medium, and no correct answers were low awareness/informed.

Here are some results looking at the differences between these 3 groups on their support.

Do you think the U.S. should or should NOT take military action to disarm Iraq….?
Should - 62% (High/Well Informed) 68% (Medium) 69% (Low)
Should not - 32% (High) 24% (Medium) 22% (Low)

Do you think the U.S. should of should NOT take military action to remove Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein…?
Should - 54% (High/Well Informed) 67% (Medium) 66% (Low)
Should not - 38% (High) 24% (Medium) 23% (Low)

If Iraq responds to a U.S. attack with chemical or biological weapons, would you support using Nuclear weapons against Iraq?
Yes - 36% (High/Well Informed) 49% (Medium) 51% (Low)
No - 58% (High) 40% (Medium) 39% (Low)

 

You read it again and tell me.

"For instance, exactly half of those surveyed said that one or more of the terrorist hijackers were Iraqi citizens. In fact, none was."

Looks like 1/2 are ignorant slobs to me, but I may be wrong. Can't wait for the ESL jokes from dave.