Ah! The old dog can still teach the young dog a few tricks! Though I suppose calling myself a young dog at this point may be a bit much.

It’s an excellent point you make. I see that I may have misinterpreted a seemingly simple statistic. Now I’m not sure exactly what the spike in the graph means. I mean, even I may have felt a small rise in my approval rating for Bush when he didn’t start a misguided war immediately after the attack. Of course that ended up a short lived bit of hope.

I’ve come across this kind of thing so many times, where a statistic seems to imply something until you dig. And yet I can still fall for it! I suppose people like myself who are easily misled by simplified statistics are the _real_ problem with mankind!

I agree with you, but I had another thought. If a person gives, say, President Bush a 40% approval rating, and then after 9/11 gives him an 80% approval rating, that is rather foolish. But if 40% of the public gives Bush more than a 50% rating, and then after 9/11 80% give him more than a 50% rating, it’s not the same. Each individual may have felt only 5% or 10% better, and it’s not his or her fault that a lot of other people reacted the same way rather than only a few.
Do svidanya for now. Pyerezvon

Well you know, maybe I misjudged the graph a bit. If there was at least a few days of assessing the situation before the rise in approval, I can understand a little better. But I still think the rise is far too dramatic far too quickly. That kind of unmeasured response bugs me.

As I recall, Bush did not really become more popular until four or five days after 9/11. At first he seemed like a wooden lost soul, but then he got into the rhythm and seemed caring. This is what Giuliani seemed like too, a concerned and moved person, and that’s what has brought him to a possible presidency seven years later. Maybe they really did feel that way, although it’s not a good political guide for the rest of us.
People’s opinions aren’t as primary as we like to think. People felt scared after 9/11, and Bush reassured them and they loved him for that. That’s a positive opinion. I noticed at the time that he seemed more likeable. But judging things by people’s “opinions” is pretty foolish; I’m not sure what to use instead, aside from truth.
I’ve noticed that graphs are often misaligned, so I don’t know what the graph means exactly except that people tended to like Bush more after 9/11, which is a chilling thought, especially if 9/11 was fabricated. Pyerezvon {:-B

I guess it says that we have collective telepathy.

And also that we’re really stupid.

What does that say about mankind as a creature?

-banacek