I can hardly believe I’m writing this (and maybe there’s a catch) but the Nobel Commitee seems to me to have done a great thing in awarding it to a pro-democratic Iranian woman. It’s a sign that the world understands the plight of people living under Islamist dictatorships and wants to support those who have made a difference in moving the Muslim world toward greater pluarlism and openness. Next year: George W. Bush?
EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I read with interest your post today, Fri 10th Oct, on the poll purporting to show that Fox News viewers are more likely to hold false beliefs. The poll and its associated reporting are evidence of leftist bias, but I disagree with you about how the poll is biased. Notice, all three questions have a false pro-war answer and a true anti-war answer, so that the results are obviously conflating being mis-informed with being pro-war. This is probably not even intentional on the poll authors’ part.
Imagine an opposite kind of poll asking, for example:
- Did President Bush claim before the war that the threat to the US from Iraq’s WMD was imminent?
- Do a majority of Iraqis support the US invasion?
- Did the US sell significant amounts of arms to Saddam Hussein?
- Was the toppling of the Saddam statue at the end of the war staged?
A poll asking these or similar questions would doubtless find that Fox News viewers have the most accurate grasp of reality and NPR listeners the least.”
The Dish 