Quote of the day: Half of Americans now believe Iraq had WMDs—and probably wonder why Saddam Hussein didn't use them on 9/11

"Despite several years of official and press reports to the contrary, a new Harris poll finds that half of adult Americans still believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when the United States invaded the country in 2003. This is actually up from 36% last year."
—from Editor and Publisher's report of the new Harris poll


The E&P report goes on to say:

The polling company itself called this "surprising" -- considering that no WMD were ever found and U.S. inspectors have confirmed the non-existence of active weapons.

In early summer, there were reports that 500 shells once containing mustard or sarin gas nerve agents were found buried long ago in Iraq but they were judged by experts and military officials as decrepit and useless by 2003.

In another finding wildly diverging from most expert opinion and media reports, Harris found that 64% said Saddam Hussein had "strong links" with al-Qaeda, up from 62% in October 2004.

The poll of 1,020 adults was conducted July 5 to 11 and has a margin of error of three percentage points.

No one understands better than Karl Rove that you don't have to fool all of the people even some of the time. You just have to fool enough of the people enough of the time.