OY, NOT AGAIN

Via Kevin Drum, a new poll shows that people haven't learned:

A new poll shows that 57 percent of Americans continue to believe that Saddam Hussein gave "substantial support" to al-Qaida terrorists before the war with Iraq, despite a lack of evidence of that relationship.

In addition, 45 percent of Americans have the impression that "clear evidence" was found that Iraq worked closely with Osama bin Laden's network, and a majority believe that before the war Iraq either had weapons of mass destruction (38 percent) or a major program for developing them (22 percent).

There's no known evidence to date that these statements are true.

U.S. weapons inspector David Kay testified before Congress in January that no weapons were found and prewar intelligence on Iraq was "almost all wrong." CIA Director George Tenet last month rejected assertions by Vice President Dick Cheney that Iraq had cooperated with al-Qaida.

First of all, you'd think that those two WMD numbers would be reversed, since given available evidence, it is slightly more plausible that Saddam had programs capable of churning out WMD (a stretch, given the evidence) than Saddam actually having the WMD themselves.

Conservatives, warbloggers, Bush apologists, are you proud that many Americans still hold blatant misconceptions about Saddam and Al Qaeda? If our involvement in Iraq serves a noble purpose that you believe in so much, shouldn't it be worth telling the truth about it to the greatest extent possible?

Sure, Bush came out -- once -- and told nearby cameras that Saddam did not have meaningful connections with Al Qaeda or Bin Laden. But mere hours after that, Dick Cheney kept spouting the same nonsense as if Dubya hadn't said anything.

With their unwillingness to be totally straight with the American people regarding the FACT that there was no real connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda, the Bush administration used rhetorical ambiguity to the extreme to scare convince the American people to go along with the Iraq war.

Now I admit, part of this is Darryl Worley's fault.

But the rest is to be laid straight at the feet of the Bush administration and the media. It's simple, if they had been straight with the American people about the level of evidence linking Saddam to Al Qaeda in the run-up to the war, support for the war would have been substantially lower. Many Americans thought they were avenging 9/11. If the truth had come out in force before the war -- and it certainly could have, and more importantly, should have -- then the debate over the war would certainly have been different. It's not certain whether people would have supported it, but damnit, it would have been on the merits.

Guess the Bushies noticed that the war polled better when people thought Saddam had some direct connection to Al Qaeda. The truth might not have polled as well, but it would have been the truth.

All that said, I'm actually encouraged by the poll results. Why? Simple: We finally have a Democratic spokesman, in John Kerry, who will state unequivocally to the American People that this connection was never backed up by hard facts. Bush's support vis-a-vis Iraq has always been backed up by carefully-protected myths. Kerry's job is to shatter them, search-and-destroy style. He'll get a brand new Silver Star straight from TFM if he does it.