Harold Meyerson does. Well...not all of us. Just the people who watch Fox News. Or Republicans. Or the people who believe the Iraq war was justified. Or anyone who doesn't think Saddam Hussein was the bad guy. Or to put it simply...anyone who doesn't think like a liberal.
"Ever worry that millions of your fellow Americans are walking around knowing things that you don't? That your prospects for advancement may depend on your mastery of such arcana as who won the Iraqi war or where exactly Europe is?
Then don't watch Fox News. The more you watch, the more you'll get things wrong."
And what's the justificaton for these pontifications? Why, of course, the Ivory Tower, the same people who brought you "Conservatives are Nazis!"
"Researchers from the Program on International Policy Attitudes (a joint project of several academic centers, some of them based at the University of Maryland) and Knowledge Networks, a California-based polling firm, have spent the better part of the year tracking the public's misperceptions of major news events and polling people to find out just where they go to get things so balled up. This month they released their findings, which go a long way toward explaining why there's so little common ground in American politics today: People are proceeding from radically different sets of facts, some so different that they're altogether fiction."
"In a series of polls from May through September, the researchers discovered that large minorities of Americans entertained some highly fanciful beliefs about the facts of the Iraqi war. Fully 48 percent of Americans believed that the United States had uncovered evidence demonstrating a close working relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Another 22 percent thought that we had found the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And 25 percent said that most people in other countries had backed the U.S. war against Saddam Hussein. Sixty percent of all respondents entertained at least one of these bits of dubious knowledge; 8 percent believed all three."
"The researchers then asked where the respondents most commonly went to get their news. The fair and balanced folks at Fox, the survey concludes, were "the news source whose viewers had the most misperceptions." Eighty percent of Fox viewers believed at least one of these un-facts; 45 percent believed all three. Over at CBS, 71 percent of viewers fell for one of these mistakes, but just 15 percent bought into the full trifecta. And in the daintier precincts of PBS viewers and NPR listeners, just 23 percent adhered to one of these misperceptions, while a scant 4 percent entertained all three."
Me Oog. Me Fox Viewer. Me stoopid. Me believe Saddam Hussein want to kill people, because me stoopid and me caveman.
OK, let's leave the pontifications aside for a moment. Why this massive excercise in hoodwinking and skullduggery? Of course! To re-elect George W. Bush!
"Take a wild flight of fancy with me and assume for just a moment that one major goal over at Fox is to ensure Bush's reelection."
Yes. And that there is absolutely no one at PBS, NPR, CBS, ABC, NBC, the BBC, the New York Times, or Al-Jazeera with the slightest hint of a political agenda or bias towards the Dems. No one at all.
"Surely, anyone who believes that Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were in cahoots, that we've found the WMD and that Bush is revered among the peoples of the world -- all of these known facts to nearly half the Fox viewers -- is a good bet to be a Bush voter in next year's contest. By this standard -- moving votes into Bush's column and keeping them there -- Fox has to be judged a stunning success. It's not so hot on conveying information as such, but mere empiricism must seem so terribly vulgar to such creatures of refinement as Murdoch and Ailes."
Oh, how quaint. The same people who believe that they are the smartest 20% of the population think that the people who run Fox News are elitists who wish to conceal the "vulgar" truth from the public.
Give me a friggin' break.
Yes, Mr. Meyerson. By all means, continue to tell half of the people of the United States that they are stupid and gullible twits being constantly manipulated by the vast right wing conspiracy. Continue to insult their intelligence and tell them that everything they know has been adjudged by our great and mighty media overlords at PBS and NPR to be lies and fiction. Continue to believe that if you insult the intelliegence of the electorate, that they will thank you for freeing them from the shackles of ignorance and sweep the Democrats into office. Continue to trust that your contempt of 50% of American voting population will not come with a cost. In short, continue to believe that we out in red-state land are sheep in need of a liberal shepherd to save us from ourselves, even if our bleatings sound mysteriously like Bronx cheers.
Trust me, this is a perfect strategy to win in 2004. (*snicker*) No, really. People love it when you call them stupid.
Now if you excuse me, I gotta go take a wicked laugh.
Posted by Thief at October 16, 2003 05:54 PM