The slippery nature of objective reality

Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans (and surrounding Louisiana) in 2005.

George W. Bush was President of the United States between 2001 to 2009.

Barack Obama assumed office in January of 2009.

No, really, you can look up those dates on the Internet. Or even in books.

2005 is literally in the middle of 2001 and 2009.

And, yet, a Public Policy Polling survey in 2013 (yeah, it's bouncing around the Internet right now, but it was in 2013) …

'PPP surveyed 721 Louisiana voters, including an oversample of 274 usual Republican primary voters, between August 16-19, 2013. The margin of error for the overall survey was +/- 3.7% and +/- 5.9% for the GOP portion. This poll was not authorized or paid for by any campaign or political organization. PPP’s surveys are conducted through automated telephone interviews.'

… found that, overall, when asked "Who do you think was more responsible for the poor response to Hurricane Katrina: George W.
Bush or Barack Obama?" the surveyed good people of Louisiana responded:

28% George W Bush
29% Barack Obama
44% Not Sure

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_LA_821.pdf

Breaking those numbers down, only when you get to "Moderate" voters do you get more "Not Sure" than (correctly) George Bush. By the time you drift to the "Very Conservative" column, the responses are:

17% George W Bush
36% Barack Obama
47% Not Sure

People sometimes wonder "How is it that people will vote against their interests for some schmuck who does't give a rat's patootie about their well-being?" The answer seems obvious: serious cognitive distortion. I mean, even if you think the Bush Administration response to Katrina wasn't, in fact, "poor," at most that should bump up the "Not Sure" answer. That over a third of very conservative Louisianans believe that Time Traveling Fake President Barack Obama invaded the White House four years early and messed up the FEMA response to Katrina …

… simply indicates a desperate, desperate disconnect with reality by a substantial portion of the American public. God help us all.

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