How do people get such ridiculous thoughts in their head? A dishonest administration plants them there with a steady drumbeat of exaggerations, distortions and lies. In a process I call "lie and rely",
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0301/S00062.htm
the administration relies on a cowed and craven news media to present their
lies to the American people as fact - or at a minimum, as still-to-be-confirmed assertions by respected officials with a reputation for truth-telling. A handful of print reporters occasionally exposing the most egregious lies can't begin to overcome the effect of the steady drumbeat of lies reported as truth day after day on television.
If we factored out of the opinion polls all the people who have internalized White House disinformation as fact, support for the president's position would plummet. Without the support of these misled millions, Bush wouldn't have been able to ramrod through Congress a blank-check declaration. He wouldn't have had that blank check to use as a bludgeon against the U.N. and the U.S. wouldn't be on the verge of committing an act of unprovoked aggression.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0301/S00062.htm
the administration relies on a cowed and craven news media to present their
lies to the American people as fact - or at a minimum, as still-to-be-confirmed assertions by respected officials with a reputation for truth-telling. A handful of print reporters occasionally exposing the most egregious lies can't begin to overcome the effect of the steady drumbeat of lies reported as truth day after day on television.
If we factored out of the opinion polls all the people who have internalized White House disinformation as fact, support for the president's position would plummet. Without the support of these misled millions, Bush wouldn't have been able to ramrod through Congress a blank-check declaration. He wouldn't have had that blank check to use as a bludgeon against the U.N. and the U.S. wouldn't be on the verge of committing an act of unprovoked aggression.