About this:

A new poll shows that 57 percent of Americans continue to believe that Saddam Hussein gave"substantial support" to al-Qaida terrorists before the war with Iraq, despite a lack of evidence of that relationship.

In addition, 45 percent of Americans have the impression that" clear evidence" was found that Iraq worked closely with Osama bin Laden's network, and a majority believe that before the war Iraq either had weapons of mass destruction (38 percent) or a major program for developing them (22 percent).

There's no known evidence to date that these statements are true.

And, confirming the lack of concern with truth that I discussed here, there is this:

"We're so polarized right now that people are seeing what they want to see through a very partisan lens," said Thomas Mann, a political analyst and Brookings Institution scholar.

But there is also this:

The number of those who believed the year-old war would result in greater peace and stability in the Middle East has dropped from 56 percent in a Gallup poll in May 2003 to 40 percent last month in the PIPA poll.

And for the first time, a majority of Americans - 51 percent - said they thought that a majority of Iraqis wanted U.S. forces to leave. The survey was completed before the worst violence of the occupation erupted in April.

Well, I guess it could be said that people get the leaders they deserve.

Unfortunately, the rest of us get them, too.

Michael Meo - 4/25/2004

I remember watching the television news one night in the 1970s with the father of a college friend. The family had fled Hungary in the aftermath of the 1956 uprising crushed by the Soviet Union.

On the screen the politician was just finished mouthing the phrase, how we could all "trust the good sense of the American people," when my friend's father burst out with "I have no reason to trust the good sense of the American people!"

These poll results make me question whether any of us have any reason to do so.