Greetings from the Reality Based Community

The Program on International Policy Attitudes, affiliated with the University of Maryland, just released a study about the different perceptions of Bush and Kerry supporters. Read it and weep about what it says about American democracy. Dana Milbank summarizes some of the findings in the Washington Post:

A majority of Bush supporters, 72 percent, believed that Iraq possessed prohibited weapons or had a major weapons of mass destruction program, compared with 26 percent of Kerry supporters who held such beliefs. A majority of Bush supporters also believed experts agree that Iraq possessed banned weapons just before the war, and that U.S. weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer concluded that Iraq held prohibited arms or ran major programs. In fact, Duelfer and the others who have probed the matter found neither weapons of mass destruction nor major programs for producing them.

On al Qaeda's ties to Iraq, similarly, 75 percent of Bush supporters believed that Iraq either gave al Qaeda "substantial support" or direct involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; 30 percent of Kerry supporters held these views. A majority of Bush supporters believed the 9/11 commission backed them up on these beliefs, although the panel found no cooperation between the two, only some contacts.

The PIPA poll also found that 31 percent of Bush supporters believed the majority of people in the world opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq, compared with 74 percent of Kerry supporters. Bush supporters also believed most of the world favors Bush's reelection. PIPA, analyzing these results, found a "tendency of Bush supporters to ignore dissonant information."

This appears to be something that Bush supporters have in common with the candidate they support.

The PIPA poll does *not* show that if you support Bush you have lost touch with reality. Rather, it shows that losing touch with reality makes it easier to support Bush. Many good people know the facts and still support the President. The point is that if he had to rely only on this group of voters, he wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell at winning reelection.

The PIPA poll might also tend to suggest that the Bush Administration has engaged in a successful campaign of deceit and disinformation, aided and abetted by eager conservatives in mass media organizations and by a feckless press with a confused notion of journalistic objectivity. I think that the mass media are very much to blame for putting this President in office and for allowing his supporters to manipulate the mass media once there. But I also think that large segments of the American public have also been willing to be duped, or, like the President himself, don't wish to face unpleasant realities.

In other words, there is plenty of blame to go around.