Lies, damned lies and statistics

Out of the people voting for George W. Bush:

– 75% believe Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda.
– 74% believe Bush favors including labor and environmental standards in agreements on trade.
– 72% believe Iraq had WMD or a program to develop them.
– 72% believe Bush supports the treaty banning landmines.
– 69% believe Bush supports the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
– 61% believe if Bush knew there were no WMD he would not have gone to war.
– 60% believe most experts believe Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda.
– 58% believe the Duelfer report concluded that Iraq had either WMD or a major program to develop them.
– 57% believe that the majority of people in the world would prefer to see Bush reelected.
– 56% believe most experts think Iraq had WMD.
– 55% believe the 9/11 report concluded Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda.
– 51% believe Bush supports the Kyoto treaty.
– 20% believe Iraq was directly involved in 9/11.

Wait...does that mean that the stupid people who don't read papers are voting for Bush?

(list nicked from Daily Kos. Link in sidebar.)

Also, I've been meaning to post this: An article by Ron Suskind in the NY Times about Bush's faith-based presidency.

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the
White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''