September 6, 2006

Sixty Percent Can Be Wrong, And They Are

My name is Alan Smithey and I play third base for the New England Patriots. Or it’s not and I don’t. But if I worked hard enough at it, I might be able to produce a poll in which 60 percent of Americans agree with these statements. And if George W. Bush disagreed, I suppose he would be out of touch with reality.

Ah polls. August produced two fascinating polls that made news to lead us into September – one by Reuters and one by the Associated Press. The Reuters poll found that more Americans can name the Three Stooges than can name the three branches of government. Numbskulls. It also found that more people know Superman came from planet Krypton than know Mercury is the closest planet to the sun. (But did they count the responses of newly disenfranchised Plutonians?)

General theme: We’re not paying much attention to things of substance. Granted, this comes from the same news organization that won’t call the 9/11 attackers “terrorists,” but polls are polls. Take them for what they’re worth, which raises the question of what the second poll is worth.

According to an AP/Ipsos poll conducted from August 7-17, 60 percent of Americans do not believe the Iraq War is part of the War on Terror. These are presumably the same Americans who told Reuters they can recognize “American Idol” winner Taylor Hicks more readily than Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, but as far as the AP is concerned, their judgment on the matter is definitive.

George W. Bush, ever the denier of reality (which is defined by polls, you understand), disagrees. Of course, he always has. Bush told us before invading Iraq that the effort would be a central front in the larger War on Terror. And he told us why – because a foothold for democracy in the Middle East would threaten the broader support structure of terrorism, especially where they had once enjoyed the hospitality of a terrorist-friendly regime. Ask Achille Lauro hijacking “mastermind” Abu Abbas, who lived in Baghdad under Saddam’s protection for more than a decade before U.S. forces captured him trying to flee to Syria in April 2003.

Or better yet, ask Osama Bin Laden, whose Al Qaeda network has committed thousands upon thousands of fighters to the fight against democracy in Iraq – a curious allocation of resources if Iraqi democracy does not threaten terrorists.

That was Bush’s story before the war. It is also his story now. Just last week he reiterated, before an American Legion convention, that Iraq is the central front in the War on Terror. “If we give up the fight in the streets of Baghdad,” he said, “we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities.” He also invoked Thomas Jefferson in reminding his audience that nations cannot move “from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.”

So. Bush says Iraq is part of the War on Terror. Sixty percent of poll respondents say it’s not. Guess what? Only one vote matters here.

It is one thing to question whether Iraq should be part of the War on Terror (although I think Bush wins that argument rather easily, at least on substance), but what is the point of a poll that asks the nation to define a particular truth that is not determined by attitudes or opinions? Perhaps AP and Ipsos would like to conduct a poll asking Americans whether Fidel Castro is a despot. Perhaps they could ask Americans if Fidel has a beard.

Is heroin bad for you? Is 190 pounds too fat if you’re five-foot-seven? Was Mickey Rourke’s facelift a quality upgrade? Americans speak their minds!

But who cares? Facts are what they are. Heroin? Kills you. One-ninety? Buy some running shoes. Mickey? Good God, what did you do? There is such a thing as a definitively wrong opinion. Is Bush a good president? Debatable. Is the Iraq War helping us win the War on Terror? Debatable. Is the Iraq War part of the War on Terror? Indisputably.

So why even conduct such polls? Here is why:

Much of the mainstream media, in partnership with Democrats, has been trying for the better part of three years to define Iraq as separate from the War on Terror, because doing so makes Bush’s action look reckless and irresponsible. The poll is nothing more than a measurement of how the effort is going.

If they like the results, of course, out come the headlines. They can trumpet their success as validation from the public – the same public that is more familiar with Homer Simpson’s son Bart than it is with Homer the classical poet.

When Bush tries to make the opposite case, of course, the reporting focuses more on his rhetorical technique than on the substance of what he says. Behold the razor-sharp analysis of the New York Times: “While he predicted victory, resurrecting a word he had dropped months ago and using it 12 times in a 44-minute speech . . .” blather blather . . .

Facts have a way of emerging from history more intact than media spin. Bush seems to realize this, while his media antagonists are determined to redefine facts according to the public’s judgment of the moment. Except when the public does something really indefensible.  Like re-electing Bush.

This is Column # DC49.  Request permission to publish here.