Wash. Post Headline: "9/11 Linked To Iraq, In Politics if Not in Fact"

[Bleacher Creature]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/11/AR2007091102316.html

I provided a link to the article, but it's the headline that bothers me. This story was on today's front page. The first pat of the headline reads as if the two are linked. And what's with the "IF NOT in fact"???? The expression is "NOT in fact" -- no ifs, or any sort of qualifier whatsoever. I realize that the article is about the PR campaign designed to make the link, but the headline is incredibly misleading. Am I overreacting?

[Junkdrawer]

1. Iraq is, in fact, linked to 9/11....

9/11 was done to get at Iraq's oil.

[MadMaddie]

2. No...completetly deceptive headline...

And think about most people will not analyze Headlines like most of us do here...and that's with a bit of skepticism and a critical eye..

[Canuckistanian]

3. It's not a bad article

It's an analysis of the Al Qaeda/Iraq connection in the minds of Americans.

Of course, they wouldn't have that impression if Bushco weren't constantly making suggestive statements that they're the same.

It's the big lie that NEVER goes away.

And that's just the way Bush likes it.

[parasim]

4. No, you're not overreacting. I've always thought that headlines are insidious.

They are just like those news "crawls", or whatever they call them, at the bottom of the news casts. The words are read and digested.

For instance, say a newscrawl says "Official Report says Iraq is linked to 9/11..." but maybe the viewer only sees that part before it goes to commercial or whatever. And now imagine the rest of the blurb actually was "Official Report says Iraq is linked to 9/11. Report questioned by Senate Democrats" or something like that. The first sentence sticks in the mind of the viewer, the second, not as necessarily as often.

Another insidous example of media manipulation is when the news shows has a blurb at the bottom of the screen asking a question like "Do the Democrats really hate the troops?" as an obvious attempt to put those words firmly into the mind of the viewer.

Insidious, I say...

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. Yes, you are overreacting.

The headline says exactly what it intends to say - that the only connection is in politics. Grammatically, 'if not in fact' means the same as 'not in fact - it is a shorthand way of saying "Iraq connected to 9/11 by politics only; no claims of a factual connection are substantiated."

The only misleading thing about the headline is that it can be interpreted as "politically, Iraq supported the 9/11 attack", when the truth is the politics making the connection are Republican politics, not Iraqi.