It is a time of freedom and fear, of Gaia and of borders, of many paths and the widening of a universal toll road, emptying country and swelling cities, of the public bought into privacy and the privacy of the public sold into invisible data banks and knowing algorithms. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.

These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread.

Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.


 
George W. Bush said it! "It's important that we train Iraqi troops. There are nearly 100,000 troops trained. The Afghan national army is a part of the army. By the way -- it's the Afghan national army that went into Najaf and did the work there."

Even ignoring the whole "nearly 100,000 troops trained" fib (as we've noted before, the actual number is many times smaller), the whole Afghan army in Iraq thing makes me slam my head against the refrigerator and say "BWAH-HUH?" How can Americans stand to have such an ill-informed twit as a President?

Yes, how indeed can Americans stand to have such an ill-informed twit as a President? Well, of course the answer to that question is that not all of us can. A lot of us are Kerry supporters. But yes, there are a fair number of Bush supporters out there, too. What differentiates the Bush supporter and the Kerry supporter?

The Program on International Policy Attitudes at the School of Public Affairs of the University of Maryland has been asking that question, too. They conducted a research study with a representative sample of Americans to find out. Their answer: Bush supporters don't know what their own candidate's positions are.

That's right. On issue after issue, majorities of Bush supporters get their own favorite candidate's policies wrong. Not just kind of wrong, not just sort of wrong, but the really wrong, wrong, dead wrong, opposite direction from right kind of wrong. For instance, only 44% of Bush supporters were aware that Bush wants to build an anti-missile system in the United States now (one that, by the way, doesn't work). 51% of Bush supporters think that Bush supports the Kyoto accord to combat global warming (he doesn't). 66% of Bush supporters think Bush supports the existence of the International Criminal Court (he doesn't). 69% of Bush supporters think Bush supports U.S. participation in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (he doesn't). 72% of Bush supporters think Bush supports a ban on land mines (he doesn't). A whopping 84% of Bush supporters think Bush supports the inclusion of labor and environmental standards in trade pacts (he doesn't).

Meanwhile, on issue after issue majorities of Kerry supporters are able to correctly identify Kerry's positions on these same issues.

In short, large majorities of Bush supporters are either willfully or passively ignorant about the world around them and exactly how their candidate would deal with it. Kerry supporters, on the other hand, seem to know what their candidate is talking about. Doesn't it seem like a good idea to go with the people who have a clue? (Sources: Program on International Policy Attitudes September 29, 2004; George W. Bush Press Conference, September 23, 2004)

Posted by James Cook at 11:11 AM. # (permalink)




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