The Santa Clause

This is sad, but not unexpected. A large majority of Americans STILL believe that there was a Saddam - al-Qaeda link.

The poll, conducted by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes, suggested that months of revelations challenging Bush administration policy had so far had little effect on public opinion. In fact, most respondents seemed unaware of the devastating revelations made by David Kay, the administration's chief weapons inspector who found no weapons, or by Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar whose book "Against All Enemies" has been the talk of Washington for weeks.

A staggering 82 percent of respondents believed most experts supported the notion that Iraq was providing "substantial support" to al-Qaida -- a contention that President Bush himself has been forced to disavow.

Almost 60 percent were unaware that world opinion was overwhelmingly against the war in Iraq, with 21 percent saying the world was behind the U.S.-led invasion and 38 percent saying views were "evenly divided."

The organizers of the poll attributed the confusion -- or ignorance -- to the groundwork carefully laid by the administration before the war and its largely uncritical echo in the mainstream media.

Among those who believed inspectors had found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, 72 percent said they would vote to re-elect Bush in November and 23 percent said they supported his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry. Among those who knew that no WMD had been found, the numbers were almost exactly reversed -- 74 percent supporting Kerry and 23 percent backing the president...[snip]

People are devstatingly mis-informed. I'm shocked by these numbers, and I have a pretty low opinion of Joe six-pack's capacity for critical thinking and reasoning. It's just not something people are taught. I know some people with post-grad degrees that leave me speechless.

If nothing else, this poll explains in frightening terms why Bush has been polling as well as he has been.

We don't deserve this kind of ill-informed populace. I fear for our present. I fear for our future.

UPDATE: I'm not certain that I can recover from this. I'm seeing an analyst on Monday.