I saw a pointer earlier to these poll results from Rasmussen:
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.
Republicans reject that view and, by a 7-to-1 margin, say the President did not know in advance about the attacks. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 18% believe the President knew and 57% take the opposite view.
First of all, I find it amazing that 1 in 7 Republicans believes that President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks before they happened. Obviously these poll results can be used to bash Democrats, but nobody should kid themselves into thinking that the numbers wouldn’t be reversed if a Democrat were President. What percentage of Republicans believed that Bill Clinton had Vince Foster whacked for reasons that elude me to this day?
What astounds me is that a good percentage of people from across the political spectrum are willing to believe anything. There is no evidence whatsoever that anyone in the US government knew that terrorists were planning to hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings on September 11, 2001. So why do so many people believe it?
Maybe what this poll tells us is that what people really fear is things being beyond our control. That it’s scarier to live in a world where terrorists can strike the United States without our being able to detect the plan and respond to it than it is to live in a world where the President knew we were going to be attacked and let it happen for some nefarious reason. Maybe people just watch too much 24.