Chris Alger
03-11-2003, 08:27 PM
At the very bottom of New York Times story of yesterday about US public opinion tending to support the war, two sentences help explain why the US public stands alone. To understand why, let's say that President Bush and the usual coven of supporters have fingered you, personally, for 9/11 or other crimes of al Qaeda, and that they continue to do so without offering evidence. (And let's say you're innocent). No official investigative authorities consider you a suspect, but you are bothered that many people, accepting the President's word as gospel, believe you to be a bin Laden terrorist.
Then to your rescue comes the NY Times, which editorializes that no evidence against you exists (or is "thin"), and chastises the President for making the incredible allegation. You hear that a later Times article shows how the White House campaign against you isn't succeeding. Finally, you think, the nightmare is over.
Then you read the text of the Times article, and it goes something like this (from the actual article):
"Although Mr. Bush's statements at his news conference last week appear to have increased the nation's support for a war, he apparently did not succeed with one argument: convincing more Americans that Mr. Hussein had a role in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The poll found that 45 percent of Americans said Mr. Hussein as "personally involved" in the attacks, a number essentially unchanged from a month ago. "
Bush "did not succeed" in fingering you for 9/11 because only 45% fo the pubic considers you responsible for 9/11. Wouldn't you think that this was rather an odd way of putting it, at least by one of the few organs that actually questions Bush's credibility? If th NY Times presented the skeptical fringe of respectable opinion (which it does), then would you still believe that the US opinion results from a free flow of information or instead is molded by the state through propaganda?
Then to your rescue comes the NY Times, which editorializes that no evidence against you exists (or is "thin"), and chastises the President for making the incredible allegation. You hear that a later Times article shows how the White House campaign against you isn't succeeding. Finally, you think, the nightmare is over.
Then you read the text of the Times article, and it goes something like this (from the actual article):
"Although Mr. Bush's statements at his news conference last week appear to have increased the nation's support for a war, he apparently did not succeed with one argument: convincing more Americans that Mr. Hussein had a role in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The poll found that 45 percent of Americans said Mr. Hussein as "personally involved" in the attacks, a number essentially unchanged from a month ago. "
Bush "did not succeed" in fingering you for 9/11 because only 45% fo the pubic considers you responsible for 9/11. Wouldn't you think that this was rather an odd way of putting it, at least by one of the few organs that actually questions Bush's credibility? If th NY Times presented the skeptical fringe of respectable opinion (which it does), then would you still believe that the US opinion results from a free flow of information or instead is molded by the state through propaganda?