reality gap

Poll finds reality gap among Bush supporters

A large majority of President Bush's supporters continue to believe that Iraq either had weapons of mass destruction (47 percent) or a major program to develop them (25 percent), contrary to official findings, a survey taken this month found.

And three out of four Bush backers believe Saddam Hussein provided substantial support to al-Qaeda or was involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, while 56 percent said the Sept. 11 Commission found such ties.

In reality, the commission found "no collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

The survey by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes, released Thursday, shows that the supporters of Bush and Sen. John Kerry have stark differences and see "separate realities" about Iraq and other foreign policy issues.

The Bush supporters world view is right out of George Orwell's 1984:

A Party member is expected to have no private emotions and no respites from enthusiasm. He is supposed to live in a continuous frenzy of hatred of foreign enemies and internal traitors, triumph over victories, and self-abasement before the power and wisdom of the Party. The discontents produced by his bare, unsatisfying life are deliberately turned outwards and dissipated by such devices as the Two Minutes Hate, and the speculations which might possibly induce a sceptical or rebellious attitude are killed in advance by his early acquired inner discipline. The first and simplest stage in the discipline, which can be taught even to young children, is called, in Newspeak, crimestop. Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.

Thanks to Femme Fatal, a proud member of the Reality Based Community for the Orwell quote.