Still

It's stuff like this that makes me want to pull my hair out:

Newsweek poll: "Even today, more than four years into the war in Iraq, as many as four in ten Americans (41 percent) still believe Saddam Hussein’s regime was directly involved in financing, planning or carrying out the terrorist attacks on 9/11, even though no evidence has surfaced to support a connection. A majority of Americans were similarly unable to pick Saudi Arabia in a multiple-choice question about the country where most of the 9/11 hijackers were born. Just 43 percent got it right -- and a full 20 percent thought most came from Iraq."

Karl Rove, and Lee Atwater before him, recognized that the American public is ignorant. And I don't mean that as a demeaning term. I literally mean ignorant as in purposefully uninformed. Our media hasn't helped, but the buck really stops with the American people.

The constitution doesn't guarantee democracy. Our system of governance doesn't guarantee freedom. Our system guarantees that the people get the government they deserve. And by astutely observing the human landscape in America, Rove recognized that you could lie, cheat, steal, and create a dictatorship without real opposition by simply properly marketing your brand. Like any popular cereal, a box full of air with a very large ad campaign and pretty pictures on the front, Rove has been able to make his brand popular .... until now.

The only remaining question is will the American people "right" themselves in pursuit of what our founding fathers meant by creating America. That's an open question at this point. I suspect it's always been an open question.