the art of molding public opinion

The molding of public opinion:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0314/p02s01-woiq.html

Excerpts:

"WASHINGTON In his prime-time press conference last week, which focused almost solely on Iraq, President Bush mentioned Sept. 11 eight times. He referred to Saddam Hussein many more times than that, often in the same breath with Sept. 11."

"Bush never pinned blame for the attacks directly on the Iraqi president. Still, the overall effect was to reinforce an impression that persists among much of the American public: that the Iraqi dictator did play a direct role in the attacks. A New York Times/CBS poll this week shows that 45 percent of Americans believe Mr. Hussein was "personally involved" in Sept. 11, about the same figure as a month ago."

"Polling data show that right after Sept. 11, 2001, when Americans were asked open-ended questions about who was behind the attacks, only 3 percent mentioned Iraq or Hussein. But by January of this year, attitudes had been transformed. In a Knight Ridder poll, 44 percent of Americans reported that either "most" or "some" of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi citizens. The answer is zero."

"According to Mr. Kull of PIPA, there is a strong correlation between those who see the Sept. 11-Iraq connection and those who support going to war."

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Research by PIPA regarding misconceptions of Iraq, al Qaeda, and WMD.

http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Ir..._03_Report.pdf

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http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0409c.asp

Excerpt:

"In the first weeks after 9/11, fewer than 10 percent of Americans suggested to poll takers that Saddam was the source of the terrorist attacks. However, after the constant accusations and insinuations by the Bush administration, the number soared.

A February 2003 poll found that 72 percent of Americans believed that Saddam was personally involved in the September 11 attacks. A January 2003 poll found that almost half of Americans believed that one or more of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi, even though not a single hijacker hailed from that country. Seventy-three percent believed that Saddam is currently helping al-Qaeda."

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This quote by Bush is really far out. It's amazing people even fall for this:

"We know he’s got ties with al-Qaeda. A nightmare scenario, of course, is that he becomes the arsenal for a terrorist network, where they could attack America, and he’d leave no fingerprints behind."

In other words, Saddam would do terrible damage to the U.S. and there would be no way of ever proving it. How convenient! Sounds like those unfalsifiable theories that creationists spout off.


More quotes in: http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0409c.asp

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