Here, read this,
In the 24 hours after Fitzgerald's news conference, the survey and follow-up interviews found many Americans confused as to what, if anything, to make of the complicated indictment.
Ellen Mulligan, 34, a Republican and part-time art teacher who lives in Hamden, Conn., was one of these. "If I understood what happened, Vice President Cheney's adviser spoke to his wife and then she leaked the secret," Mulligan said. That is not an allegation in the indictment, but though Mulligan may not know exactly what happened, the scandal for her is both typical Washington and part of a broader pattern of ethical challenges in this administration.
And this woman actually
watched the press conference!!! Can you even imagine...
(moron the flip)
the enormity of the task -- trying to get the rest of the mouthbreathers to figure out this whole sordid story? What's the point, right? I mean, if you care enough to watch an hour-long press conference and that's the best you can do then we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel by now. Maybe everyone who is going to be swayed by this scandal is already there and we'll just have to be content with bush's approval rating hovering around 40%...
Ok, here's some more wisdom for the ages from the same woman,
"My actual opinion is more, 'Here we go again.' Every administration has their secrets and has some corruption," she said. But she is disappointed with Bush on the ethics front. "I think Bush's actions in certain situations are pretty much unethical, [though] not illegal. . . . He's definitely not his father. His father seemed more wholesome, more down-to-earth."
(Well, besides being totally irrelevant --"Wholesome"? Is she kidding? He was the director of the damn CIA at the height of the Cold War! His job was to fund Latin American death squads and assassinate heads of state! Besides which he kinda looks like Satan. "Wholesome" is like the Osmonds or a bowl of oatmeal. But I digress...)
Anyway, these are the people both parties are now battling to convince. There's a percentage of play here between the total wingnuts (I'd say about 30%, based on Nixon's numbers. Give or take.) and Bush's current position in the low 40's. About 10% of the electorate too, shall we say, special to get the story straight in their adorable little minds. These are whom the fight is over. We're totally fucked, right?
But, you know, it gets me thinking, maybe this actually works to our advantage...
I mean, think about it - if they're not smart enough to watch an hour-long press conference and come away with at least a cliff's notes comprehension of what they just experienced then doesn't that also suggest that they're not sophisticated enough to follow the republican spin machine's "logic" (disingenuous arguments over whether she was "covert" etc.) either? And what that really means is that all that will "stick" with these people is the main headline that reaches them from the network news program competing with the screaming kids in the background as they scramble to cook dinner before their husbands gets home from work; ie., "chief of staff of the vice president... indictment... perjury, obstruction of justice... tonight on Jay Leno, Ben Affleck and Eliza Dushku..."
Like Pavlov's dogs, it's the accumulation of such sensory stimuli that matters here. Subtlety is totally wasted on them! Well-reasoned (or for that matter, totally made up) arguments would have no effect one way or another! It's simply a numbers game of how many times over they hear about a "culture of corruption in the White House."
It's actually really really good for our side if you think about it. With each new indictment by Fitzgerald news coverage will escalate and points will slowly be eaten away from Georgie's pathetic approval rating; and, besides bombarding us with constant terrorist threats, there really isn't anything that Karl Rove or Rupert Murdoch can do about it!