In the era of Fox News's growing popularity, it is no surprise that the U.S. is suffering from a blurring of the distinction between rhetoric and fact. Television, radio, and even print news are all under the grips of their political persuasions.
Of course, if the first rule of the media is to "give the people what they want," this dismaying state of affairs suggests complicity on our part. Americans are dangerously fact-illiterate at times, particularly in scientific and technical affairs. Keeping in mind that individuals who are not anchored to facts are particularly subject to the pulls of fiery rhetoric, this is an indictment of both our educational and political systems.
For example, there have been countless opinion polls showing Americans' misperceptions as far as the Iraq War goes. In a 2003 poll, 33 percent of regular Fox News viewers and 11 percent of regular National Public Radio listeners responded that they believed that America found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I won't bore you with laundry lists of numbers, but suffice it to say, Americans struggle these days to sort through the haze of opinion and ideological wash that surrounds political facts.
Why is this? Remember the 2000 presidential campaign? Then-Governor George Bush ran on the platform of bringing the parties together and calming partisan rancor. Whatever your opinion of the President or his opponents in Congress, it is clear that the rhetoric is flying fast and freely these days. As it turns out, the President and his administration are particularly egregious offenders when it comes to accurately representing facts.
Again, regardless of your political persuasion, it is clear that the administration's various justifications for the Iraq War were driven by a substantial measure of rhetoric, rather than the facts on the table. Remember Colin Powell's reaction to the drafts of his February 5th speech before the United Nations? How about Vice President Cheney's insistence on the link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, even after the 9/11 Commission dismissed it?
But perhaps I'm underestimating my own ideological bias, and these examples are not obvious misrepresentations in the eyes of loyal conservatives. In that case, let's look back to 2004, when over 20 Nobel Laureates and dozens of their colleagues signed a statement prepared by the Union of Concerned Scientists suggesting that the administration has a problem with the truth, as far as science contributes to it.
For example, the Union of Concerned Scientists found that "there is a well-established pattern of suppression and distortion of scientific findings by high-ranking Bush administration political appointees across numerous federal agencies." Perhaps worse, they also allege that "there is significant evidence that the scope and scale of the manipulation of science by the Bush administration is unprecedented."
In liberalism's modern age, science enjoys a favored position as a purveyor of facts. It is almost completely responsible for the industrial achievements which it now identifies as harmful to the environment. The higher quality of life that modern Americans enjoy comes largely from scientific advancement, as does the country's military primacy. Science is a tool for war, peace, and efficiency. The experimental method is not rhetorical by its nature. It is disturbing, then, when our nation's leaders attempt to harness it to serve political ends.
This administration's disregard for the facts suggests a certain intellectual dishonesty and an ideological agenda which does not take the state of the empirical world as a barrier for its ends. Put simply, this attitude prefers ideology to reality, opinion before fact, and political expedience to contingency.