From a Harris Poll taken from July5-11.
"Despite being widely reported in the media that the U.S. and other countries have not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, surprisingly; more U.S. adults (50%) think that Iraq had such weapons when the U.S. invaded Iraq. This is an increase from 36 percent in February 2005."
I heard the head of Harris Poll on "On the Media," and he speculated that the increase could because people don't know the difference between Iran and Iraq, but that he didn't have any data on it. [The other possibility mentioned: they closely read obscure reports released by Rick Santorum about 70 shells from the 80s and misconstrue those.]
As if that weren't bad enough:
"* Seventy-two percent believe that the Iraqis are better off now than they were under Saddam Hussein (slightly down from February 2005 when 76 percent said this was true).
* Just over half (55%) think history will give the U.S. credit for bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq (down substantially from 64% in February 2005).
* Sixty-four percent say it is true that Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al Qaeda (the same as 64% in February 2005)."
Good, Good.
Well, at least the poll accurately reports what it itself actually means:
"This Harris Poll® was conducted by telephone within the United States between July 5 and 11, 2006 among 1,020 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region, number of adults in the household, number of phone lines in the household were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population.
All surveys are subject to several sources of error. These include: sampling error (because only a sample of a population is interviewed); measurement error due to question wording and/or question order, deliberately or unintentionally inaccurate responses, nonresponse (including refusals), interviewer effects (when live interviewers are used) and weighting.
With one exception (sampling error) the magnitude of the errors that result cannot be estimated. There is, therefore, no way to calculate a finite "margin of error" for any survey and the use of these words should be avoided.
With pure probability samples, with 100 percent response rates, it is possible to calculate the probability that the sampling error (but not other sources of error) is not greater than some number. With a pure probability sample of 1,016 adults one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 3 percentage points. However that does not take other sources of error into account."
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3 comments:
I don't buy either of these two potential explanations - but I do agree that this is a fact that desperately needs to be explained.
First, it would be really interesting to see the progression of this particular poll question. Just how "stupid" have we gotten over time? Any significant events that correspond to our self-serving "dumbening"?
What I would suggest this poll reveals is the ridiculousness of attempting to poll this question today. It is absurd to think that such poll today is reflective of the actual epistemic commitments of real people. WMDs in Iraq, and the debate surrounding their absence, is such common currency in public deliberation today that anyone posed the question would immediately recognize the deeper significances of answering one way or another. To answer negatively is, in effect, to say something even stronger than "the invasion and occupation haven't been worth it to US and its interests" (a claim, incidently, that other polls show a plurality of Americans assenting to); rather, after the invasion the Administration has been increasingly forced to provide rationale for its Iraq experiment and has leaned so heavily on the WMD intelligence charge, that today to say "no WMD's have been found" increasingly means, eo ipso, that the "US has acted as an aggressor nation".
I think it is more plausible to read this uptick in ignorance on the question of WMD's and Iraq as a kind of self-delusion that the public framing of the debate has imposed on anyone who wants to see themselves and their society as fundamentally just. Iraq is hell, and it may not prove worth the loss and sacrifice, but, damn it, you'll never get me to publically admit that this carnage stems from naked self-interest that I allowed to happen and am continuing to finance!
Does this count as support for my view?
This morning Bush held a news conference to announce a new rationale for staying the course in Iraq:
"President Bush said Monday the United States would lose "our soul as a nation" if it gave up on the Iraq war now."
Translation: HELLO - THIS IS A MORAL CONFLICT FOLKS...YOU'RE EITHER A BAD GUY OR A GOOD GUY.
Maybe a good short term strategy to artificially inflate public support for more of the same. And this itself is a sign of just how little they have for this election cycle. I mean, isn't what Bush is really reduced to saying here "you stupid hicks let me create this mess, so shut the fuck up about calling me liar, cheat, thief and murder because if it is true of me then it is equally true of you."?
But now that truth has gone out the window completely (Bush also is forced again to admit publically in the Press Conference that there were no WMDs in Iraq) how long before the continued death and destruction make people tire of the naked argument "don't call me a fucker, fucker." After all, those people who have suddenly changed their minds about WMDs in Iraq haven't really forgotten the truth. They must be perfectly well aware of the show Bush is putting on.
Washington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/21/AR2006082100209.html
Keep up the good work
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