Of polls and corrections

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/22_believe_bush_knew_about_9_11_attacks_in_advance

Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know, and 26% are not sure.

Which brings the total to 61% that cannot respond in the negative to a charge that Bush was an accessory to 9/11.

Now, by itself, this isn't a lot. I mean, honestly, polls will be polls. Dems will be bitterly partisan, et al.

But, this isn't a vacuum. Compare how much you've heard about this poll to how much over-the-top bleating you heard about how SO MANY PEOPLE THINK SADDAM CAUSED 9/11!

Compare the amount of effort that the press has expended on attacking that notion with the amount of effort the press has tackled this fantasy.

Not. One. Word.
 
Seriously, getting your thread ideas from O'reilly?


But if you can't see the difference in one poll's results which showed the public was (blindly) supporting a cause for war and another poll which does nothing, than no wonder you listen to Billo.

The irony of your mock outrage is, there is more evidence showing that Bush knew something was going to happen (i.e. PDB 8/6/2001) than Saddam being linked to 9/11.

yeah and only Dems are bitterly partisan lol.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/august6.memo/

Well, it's not a poll...but, y'know.[/QUOTE]

Come on, myke. The question was, and I quote, "Did Bush Know About the 9/11 Attacks in Advance?" Honestly, who can argue credibly that one piece of general intelligence information equals knowledge of a specific attack plot, time and method? Polls like this make me feel there are far more conspiracy theory loons out there than any of us should be comfortable with.
 
It depends on exactly how the question is asked, and how people interpret the question. Did Bush know the specifics of the 9/11 attacks in advance and chose to let them happen? Virtually everyone, I'm sure, would say no.

Did Bush know about Bin Laden's plan to attack on America (involving hijacked planes), the one that happened on 9/11? Well, we know for a fact that he was told about it. Whether or not that translates into him knowing about it is harder to answer (Bush isn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer...)
 
[quote name='Drocket']It depends on exactly how the question is asked, and how people interpret the question. Did Bush know the specifics of the 9/11 attacks in advance and chose to let them happen? Virtually everyone, I'm sure, would say no.

Did Bush know about Bin Laden's plan to attack on America (involving hijacked planes), the one that happened on 9/11? Well, we know for a fact that he was told about it. Whether or not that translates into him knowing about it is harder to answer (Bush isn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer...)[/QUOTE]

And of course you know that is a completely false characterization of the facts. Are you really claiming that the PDB referenced indicated to Bush that Bin Laden had a plot underway to fly planes into buildings? Or, back to reality, was it that he was "determined to attack" us?

"Somebody's determined to burglarize your home."
"You knew! You knew they would burglarize your home through the back window using a crowbar at 11:32 a.m. on August 18th, 2009!!"
 
[quote name='elprincipe']Come on, myke. The question was, and I quote, "Did Bush Know About the 9/11 Attacks in Advance?" Honestly, who can argue credibly that one piece of general intelligence information equals knowledge of a specific attack plot, time and method? Polls like this make me feel there are far more conspiracy theory loons out there than any of us should be comfortable with.[/QUOTE]


read your own post. The question wasn't "Did Bush know the exact attack plot time and method" it was "Did Bush Know About the 9/11 Attacks in Advance?" Given the evidence, it is not a stretch that Bush had an inkling something was coming.

The question allows for some leeway. Of course you assume everyone the OP identifies thinks Bush was remote controlling the planes. And YOU have the balls to complain about mischaracterization....perhaps because you know it so well, eh?

and psssst.. Here is a history lesson. The PDB didn't exist in a vacuum. More like..

"Somebody's determined to burglarize your home."
"Somebody is making threats about robbing you late summer"
"Somebody is bragging to there friends they will rob you soon (it's june)"
A cop warns your friend robbers are specifically targetting you
"Somebody is praticing swinging crowbars in your neighborhood"
"Somedoby cased your house, spending a lot of time looking at the back window"
You are given a written warning about a robber

then

"You knew! You knew they would burglarize your home through the back window using a crowbar at 11:32 a.m. on August 18th, 2009!!"
 
usickenme's grasp of how the intelligence community works IS GENIUS, matched only by his tenacious suction grip on his narrative.

Furthermore, I think it goes off the topic. If so many people can have questions about links between Saddam and al-Qaeda, so much so that the media breathlessly runs around to debunk them, why does a not dissimilar margin that believes the President "knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance" not merit similar debunking? Especially when answers to that question are given with, at best, half-remembered, crappy public school civics knowledge.
 
Polls can be incredibly misleading, especially depending on the question asked. The mainstream media seems to enjoy taking the results of polls and twisting it to their every whim.

For instance, say I ask a group of people "Do you enjoy kittens?" 45% of the people could answer "Yes" while 55% could answer "No." If I worked for some newspaper such as the New York Times, the headline would most likely read "MOST AMERICANS HATE CUTE KITTIES". There was never any question if the people disliked kittens. Maybe the majority of the people polled were dog lovers? The sad thing is that the vast majority of instances like this are never challenged and people accept it without question.

Crap like this is why I dropped my Journalism major in college. Better to stay away from the taint than to be one of the few sane reporters that at least tries to stay unbiased... I'd be eaten alive within 6 months...
 
I take anything Rolling says about intelligence with a boulder of salt.

by the way. To answer you question again.

This poll doesn't need "debunking" simply because it doesn't amount to anything ( except Bill O'reilly talking points). The consequences of belief in the 9/11 - Saddam connection meant that knuckleheads like you could justify the war and the immediacy of it.

Furthermore, the government is NOT making the case that Bush knew about 9/11 before. They were, making the connection between 9/11 and Saddam. When the gov't pushes a lie and the public believes, it's a big story.

So those two reasons, the consequence and the origin of the poll results means you'll just have to cry about it in little threads like this. Kay?


OMFG! the media over reports and under reports certain stories!
 
[quote name='elprincipe']Come on, myke. The question was, and I quote, "Did Bush Know About the 9/11 Attacks in Advance?" Honestly, who can argue credibly that one piece of general intelligence information equals knowledge of a specific attack plot, time and method? Polls like this make me feel there are far more conspiracy theory loons out there than any of us should be comfortable with.[/QUOTE]

Two things:

1) There's more than the PDB to suggest an interest in pursuing bin Laden; the USS Cole, efforts from Richard Clarke during the transition from the Clinton to Bush presidencies, and even (despite my disdain for him right now) George Tenet. The PDB is merely the most clear evidence that our intelligence community should have been working to install some precautionary measures in the US.

2) I think that too many false conclusions can be drawn from a "yes" answer to "Did Bush know about 9/11 in advance?" I would answer "yes" to that question as well, because I believe that he was aware of al qaeda, he was aware of bin laden, and he was aware that they wanted to attack within the US, and that there were murmurs of using airplanes as weapons. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and you'd be right to remind me of that. Nevertheless, a leader of a group who has made several attempts to attack us domestically and abroad in the past decade and a half ought to be regarded as a legitimate threat - yet, when presented with intelligence, nothing was done.

In other words, the question "did Bush know about 9/11 in advance?" is a far more vague question that many of you want to admit. RollingSkull, in trying his damndest to frame a world of liberal bias, hypersuperstition, and hypocrisy, decides that a multitude answering to this question affirmatively indicates something parallel to the notion of Iraq/al qaeda coalitioning. This ignores, of course, the nuances of the answers such a vague question generates, because a "yes" answer captures all sorts of people - both people like myself, who argue that "the writing was on the fucking wall, even if the specific date/location was unknown," and those who think that George Bush personally planned 9/11. We're all boiled down to a % of "yes" answers, and RollingSkull merely imposes his ideology upon that percentage to reflect the reality he wants to create for himself.

If you ask me the question in the poll, I'd say "yes." If you ask me "did Bush know when and where the 9/11 attacks would take place," I'd say "no" without hesitation.
 
Myke can hyperventilate, cover his eyes, and shout "LALALALALALA I CANT HEAR YOU" all while feigning some degree of enlightened reason by pretending that the media doesn't skew left. That's his right. I just hope someday that he realizes that having to dig for some deeper 'nuance' in every single example of this sort of thing (While conveniently ignoring that 'nuance' on the other side.) might be emblematic of what could be a slightly larger problem.

In the meantime, the narrative works: FOX NEWS = RACIST REPUBLIKKKAN GARBAGE! EVERY OTHER NEWS SOURCE, FROM THE BBC TO CNN? PURE AS ANGEL'S SNOW!
 
[quote name='usickenme']Furthermore, the government is NOT making the case that Bush knew about 9/11 before. They were, making the connection between 9/11 and Saddam. When the gov't pushes a lie and the public believes, it's a big story.[/quote]

But when a forumer pushes a lie like this, the only place to gripe about it is... hell, through all of the media.

Bush was not pushing the Saddam 9/11 connection. Msut couldn't prove it. The shrieks of a thousand hyperventilating 'journalists' who masturbate to Watergate are the only things that pushed this angle.

BUSH LIED PEOPLE DIED. KEEP THE FAITH PEOPLE.
 
And, finally, the poll I've most been interested in seeing: How many people think that Libby was convicted for revealing Plame's name, or that his conviction implicates the villainous Karl Rove in the Plame game.

What do YOU all think the percentages would be on that? Similar to this mythical Saddam/9-11 poll that quickly became the SADDAM AND AL-QAEDA WERE REALLY ENEMES meme? I'd put it pretty close...
 
[quote name='RollingSkull']

Bush was not pushing the Saddam 9/11 connection. Msut couldn't prove it. The shrieks of a thousand hyperventilating 'journalists' who masturbate to Watergate are the only things that pushed this angle.
.[/QUOTE]

Didn't limit it to just Bush. (of course you could just read the resolution to go to war for pete's sake.)

and I'm sure Cheney talking about a phantom meeting of Iraqi official and Atta in Prague was just a figment of "duh liburel meedia" as well. And the 9/11 comisssion was just some conspiracy against Bush.

FYI- just because you can't remember something doesn't mean someone couldn't prove it.
 
[quote name='Rollingskull']Bush was not pushing the Saddam 9/11 connection. Msut couldn't prove it.[/QUOTE]

That is a blatant lie.
 
[quote name='RollingSkull']Myke can hyperventilate, cover his eyes, and shout "LALALALALALA I CANT HEAR YOU" all while feigning some degree of enlightened reason by pretending that the media doesn't skew left. That's his right. I just hope someday that he realizes that having to dig for some deeper 'nuance' in every single example of this sort of thing (While conveniently ignoring that 'nuance' on the other side.) might be emblematic of what could be a slightly larger problem.

In the meantime, the narrative works: FOX NEWS = RACIST REPUBLIKKKAN GARBAGE! EVERY OTHER NEWS SOURCE, FROM THE BBC TO CNN? PURE AS ANGEL'S SNOW![/QUOTE]

Reading this post in context with not only my prior post, but the remainder of the thread, I'm not sure you should be permitted to accuse anyone of hyperventilating or 'bleating.'

That said, I would appreciate if you would deal with what I actually said in my post, rather than dance around the topic with ad hominems, non sequiturs, and avoiding the points I raised. Those points were, IMO, legitimate questions about the ambiguity of such a question, as well as the variance in what a "yes" answer means. In your world, it seems, you want a "yes" to mean only *one* thing; that one thing, ironically enough, is not that "35% of Democrats believe Bush knew about 9/11," it is, rather "the media is complicit with Democrats and liberal ideologies to expose conservative idiocy and hide or disguise liberal idiocy."

Yet *I'm* the one accused of drawing too many nuances out of a survey! How absurd.

Let me set it to you straight: I do survey research for a living; I've studied research methodology and survey construction for years. I'm not pulling this card to pull rank and say "I'm right, you're wrong." But I am pulling this card to tell you that your retorts to my points better be far better defined than the sort of Chicken Little dance you tend to do in response to arguments.

My overall point, if you need me to boil it down to compensate for your analytic reading skills, is this: The Rasmussen poll question, "Did Bush Know About the 9/11 Attacks in Advance?" is ambiguous enough to warrant a variety of answers that all become similarly categorized as "yes," from the kookiest "9/11 was an inside job" person to the "Between Richard Clarke, the 8/6 PDB, the CIA focus early on in 2001, and other documents, it's clear that some information was presented to the president prior to 9/11."

Your retort?
 
Myke, what I want the 'yes' answer to mean is meaningless in the face of a thousand journalists twisting polls into 'teachable moments.' I'd think even you would realize this. I don't give a crap about this poll in a vacuum. I don't honestly think 60+% of the Democrats are truther morons. A poll like this, however, is hardly different from any of a hundred different polls twisted by the media into something that requires endless lecturing. That you cannot see this represents, to me, a willful misreading of my post.

That is a blatant lie.

Again, that letter was so vague as to prove precisely jack.

Didn't limit it to just Bush. (of course you could just read the resolution to go to war for pete's sake.)

and I'm sure Cheney talking about a phantom meeting of Iraqi official and Atta in Prague was just a figment of "duh liburel meedia" as well. And the 9/11 comisssion was just some conspiracy against Bush.

I believe it was Dutch intelligence that still stands by that story.

At what point are they misleading the American public if they are passing on information held by intelligence agencies to be true. Were the Democratic pundits all liars because they predicted thousands of casualties before our troops even reached Baghdad?
 
Aside from the obvious fact that intelligence shows the administration should have been clued into an impending attack on our soil, and the fact that such knowledge gives some credence to the probability that the administration knew threats existed and were potentially imminent, and aside from your false assumption that "Bush knew about 9/11 in advance" is as absurd a thought as "Iraq and al qaeda were in cahoots," let's deal with something else entirely...

That is simply this: where is your evidence to prove that disproving the Iraq/al qaeda link is given more time in the media than whether or not Bush knew about 9/11 ahead of time? It isn't merely the case because you think it is. After all, viewing life through your lenses, I'm sure the news could be 30 minutes of Bill Kristol thumbing his asshole while reading a copy of "The Turner Diaries" and Rush Limbaugh singing "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" while wearing nothing more than an "Uncle Sam" mask - and it still would be liberal in your eyes. So where is your proof?

I'm still waiting for my liberal media to pick up on the Los Angeles police actions against the May Day protesters; what better to show the terrible, oppressive state than...well, the state acting terrible and oppressive? Not even Lou "fuck you, 'messicans" Dobbs touched that story. Here's another question: why is the media always liberal, except when it isn't?

Go buy yourself of Pierre Bourdieu's "On Television" and thank me later.
 
The effort to reward ratio on that bit of GoogleDectectivedom would be ridiculous, and you know it. It should be obvious to anyone who even watches the talking heads

On a side note, I read about that story earlier: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070502/D8OSG27G6.html

Yeah, there's nothing better to illustrate the fascism of the LAPD brutal regime than their hyperviolent, totalitarian response to peaceful bottle-and-rock hurling protestors.

Note how well-hidden the bottle-and-rock chucking is.

So, why does one counter-example of something that you think the media should have covered completely disprove the entire notion that the media skews liberal?

EDIT: Holy crap, and how could I forget the video that first turned me on to this affair. Let's just say the LAPD doesn't come out looking like angels either. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFdNkXJMH9A

They shoved and batoned Fox News reporters! That counts as friendly fire!

EDIT^2: I don't believe for a second that that video the Fox News dudes are showing counts as 'unedited' in the strictest sense, either. I would say why, but I'll just give a reason that won't blow Myke's mind: "IT IS BECAUSE I THINK EVEN FOX NEWS IS EVIL AND LIBERAL."
 
Have you stopped beating your wife?

61% of Democrats say 'Yes'
32% of Democrats say 'No'
6% of Democrats say "Not sure'
 
[quote name='RollingSkull']


I believe it was Dutch intelligence that still stands by that story.
[/QUOTE]

Are you trying to tell me we should take our intelligence cues from the Dutch?

At what point are they misleading the American public if they are passing on information held by intelligence agencies to be true. Were the Democratic pundits all liars because they predicted thousands of casualties before our troops even reached Baghdad?

at the point they know it is bullshit and still pass it off as true because "someone else" says so. It's 3rd grade logic. In other words, if you are going to war, to be putting US troops in harm's way, to be putting the US's reputation on the line; you'd better have more proof than "the Dutch say it's true"

If the Democratic pundits received the same information (as same doubts) as the Bush administration, then, of course they are culpable. However, I don't think they did.
 
[quote name='RollingSkull']The effort to reward ratio on that bit of GoogleDectectivedom would be ridiculous, and you know it. It should be obvious to anyone who even watches the talking heads[/QUOTE]

Briefly, since you know it, and I know it, where does that leave your original claim, except dead in the water?

Now, as for "one" example of how liberal the news is, that's simply not the only example I can think of. For the matter, that "entertaining" folks who are fucking idiots, like Ann Coulter, O'Reilly, Hannity and Colmes, Glen Beck, Keith Olbermann, and the like are on TV, yet true, thoughtful intellectuals are *NEVER* on (e.g., Studs Terkel, Noam Chomsky, and even the lone conservative intellectual, George Will) are indicative of a media that is neither conservative nor liberal. Instead, they are bent on ensuring that you watch long enough to garner the ratings that make ad revenue go higher. If it's Ann Coulter or a squirrel waterskiing, the media doesn't care. They want money, they don't live by some insidious desire to manipulate the public into neo-liberal thinking. Besides, there's someting above the "liberal media" that is oft-ignored and nullifies, by sheer logic, the ability of the idea of "media as liberal" to exist: that is the multinational corporations behind them.
 
Reminder: "Theoretically" the Dutch. I forget precisely which smaller European country was the one that handed that story along. The actual country in question, I suppose, is immaterial.

I'm trying to say that, since intelligence agencies operate on consensus, they are the ones responsible for vetting intelligence. Bush cannot fact check his intelligence agencies, and just one dissenting opinion isn't worth shit. There is no 100% super-dee-duper sureness in the world of intel. There will always be dissenters. There is no real life Jack Bauer who is the only man in the world who realizes that the war is fake. If one intelligence agency puts Zarqie in Prague and another one just has his CREDIT CARD being used elsewhere... well, if you cannot put some degree of trust in your allies' intel, then what is the point of having allies?
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Now, as for "one" example of how liberal the news is, that's simply not the only example I can think of. For the matter, that "entertaining" folks who are fucking idiots, like Ann Coulter, O'Reilly, Hannity and Colmes, Glen Beck, Keith Olbermann, and the like are on TV, yet true, thoughtful intellectuals are *NEVER* on (e.g., Studs Terkel, Noam Chomsky, and even the lone conservative intellectual, George Will) are indicative of a media that is neither conservative nor liberal. Instead, they are bent on ensuring that you watch long enough to garner the ratings that make ad revenue go higher. If it's Ann Coulter or a squirrel waterskiing, the media doesn't care. They want money, they don't live by some insidious desire to manipulate the public into neo-liberal thinking. Besides, there's someting above the "liberal media" that is oft-ignored and nullifies, by sheer logic, the ability of the idea of "media as liberal" to exist: that is the multinational corporations behind them.[/quote]

Your... rather tenuous characterization of Chomsky as a true, thoughtful intellectual aside...

I think in this regard, you're selling the media even shorter than I would, not to mention again and again caricaturing my belief that the media skews liberal, imputing to it explanations and rationale I never gave you, simply to characterize me as some sort of O'Reilly-ite.

If the world of news media were truly so mercenary, it would have to have been for quite a while. There hasn't been a significant enough change since the days of Cronkite and similarly respected journalists to completely stamp out the idealism of the profession. Journalists hold themselves in a certain regard for a reason, and it isn't because their profession is entirely dominated by money-seeking hacks. (Otherwise, at least one businessman would have seen the wild financial success of Fox News and attempted to emulate that business model.)

Granted, part of it has always been that narrative drive. Stories sell better when they can easily be symbolized with pictures. Definite heroes, definite villains, definite victims. (Vtech, in this instance, was much better for journalists than that one college shooting incident a long while back where students and professors fired back at the gunman.) But this idea of a purely money-seeking media, I don't believe it is an accurate representation of media in its entirety, and I think you'd have to completely ignore a huge chunk of history to believe that. There's always the desire for power, as well. Journalists have been seeking to write the next Watergate, the next Vietnam for years. It is evident in most of their breaking stories from top to bottom: one great example? Shep Smith's ludicrous Katrina coverage. There is always going to be that self-actualization aspect of the news media, and I don't think you can claim to understand it at all if you don't see that as a driving force as well.
 
[quote name='usickenme']read your own post. The question wasn't "Did Bush know the exact attack plot time and method" it was "Did Bush Know About the 9/11 Attacks in Advance?" Given the evidence, it is not a stretch that Bush had an inkling something was coming.

The question allows for some leeway. Of course you assume everyone the OP identifies thinks Bush was remote controlling the planes. And YOU have the balls to complain about mischaracterization....perhaps because you know it so well, eh?[/QUOTE]

Well, I'm going to have to have you read what you just wrote here again since it proves my point (although, again, I could do without the thinly-veiled insult thrown in for good measure).

You say Bush had "an inkling" that "something" was coming. Obviously, to a reasonable person that equates to him "knowing about the 9/11 attacks in advance." Why couldn't I see that obvious fact?! I mean, "something" coming is clearly the same as 19 hijackers taking over planes with box cutters and flying them into buildings at a certain time on a certain day. Why didn't I see those were the same things before?!

Should Bush have been aware bin Laden was attempting to attack the U.S.? Absolutely.

Did Bush know about the 9/11 attacks in advance? Get thee to the loony conspiracy-theory convention if you answered yes to that one.
 
[quote name='RollingSkull']If one intelligence agency puts Zarqie in Prague and another one just has his CREDIT CARD being used elsewhere... well, if you cannot put some degree of trust in your allies' intel, then what is the point of having allies?[/QUOTE]

Yeah that is the idea. But that doesn't mean it should translate into "Find which ONE ally's intelligence makes your case the best and fuck all the rest".
 
[quote name='elprincipe']Well, I'm going to have to have you read what you just wrote here again since it proves my point (although, again, I could do without the thinly-veiled insult thrown in for good measure).

You say Bush had "an inkling" that "something" was coming. Obviously, to a reasonable person that equates to him "knowing about the 9/11 attacks in advance." Why couldn't I see that obvious fact?! I mean, "something" coming is clearly the same as 19 hijackers taking over planes with box cutters and flying them into buildings at a certain time on a certain day. Why didn't I see those were the same things before?!

Should Bush have been aware bin Laden was attempting to attack the U.S.? Absolutely.

Did Bush know about the 9/11 attacks in advance? Get thee to the loony conspiracy-theory convention if you answered yes to that one.[/QUOTE]

and you cry about thinly-veiled insults? Please spare us. Are you the only one allowed?

I guess what it comes down to is how the person on the receiving end the question defines "9/11 attacks". You seem to think that there is only one way to define it-the actual event. However, if one see 9/11 attacks as one manifestation of the broader threat, then a yes answer isn't so far fetched. Face it, despite your sarcasm, not everyone will read the question the same as you have and to some; even thinking Bush had an inkling would warrant a yes answer.


Perhaps if you spent less time trying to be the smartest man in the thread and more time with an open mind. You might see other peoples points of view once in a while. Of course, it's much easier to just label people as loony.
 
[quote name='usickenme']and you cry about thinly-veiled insults? Please spare us. Are you the only one allowed?[/quote]

Please point out to me where I insulted you. I criticized your argument, definitely, but there was nothing personal there (unlike your comment that I was an expert on misinformation).

[quote name='usickenme']I guess what it comes down to is how the person on the receiving end the question defines "9/11 attacks". You seem to think that there is only one way to define it-the actual event. However, if one see 9/11 attacks as one manifestation of the broader threat, then a yes answer isn't so far fetched. Face it, despite your sarcasm, not everyone will read the question the same as you have and to some; even thinking Bush had an inkling would warrant a yes answer.

Perhaps if you spent less time trying to be the smartest man in the thread and more time with an open mind. You might see other peoples points of view once in a while. Of course, it's much easier to just label people as loony.[/QUOTE]

Well, that's the first time I've been criticized for attempting to maximize intelligence, that's for sure. I do wonder why you feel intelligence and open-mindedness are mutually exclusive.

Obviously, from the replies on this thread, people have read the question differently from what it plainly asks. I suppose the question would be how the people asked the question in the poll interpreted it, but of course we'll never know.
 
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