Staring us in the face is a problem no one wants to talk about.  It is the fact that a supermajority – up to 70 percent by one poll – fell for the Bush administration line that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11.  This was a wake-up call but the country slept through it.  Our generation’s challenge, says Rick Shenkman, is to inquire into the causes and do something about it. For if Americans cannot get the basic facts right about events of the magnitude of 9/11 and the Iraq War, can they really understand the other complicated issues facing us?

The story Shenkman tells in Just How Stupid Are We? is how we got to this sorry point. As he explains, a confluence of events over the last half century left voters less well-equipped than their grandparents to deal with the complicated challenges that face us, making them susceptible to soothing myths, bumper sticker slogans, and raw emotional appeals—and this at a time when voters exercise more direct control over politics than ever before.

No one thing can explain the foolishness that marks so much of American politics:  catchy soundbites, gotcha journalism and all the rest.  But what is striking is how often the most obvious cause—that appeals are expressly designed to take advantage of stupid voters—is blithely disregarded.  Blinded by the myth of The People, we find it easier to finger our politicians and the media for our troubles than to ask why superficiality and deception work.

In a hopeful Coda Shenkman provides a series of suggestions we can undertake to remedy the situation.  “If we want a country of smart voters who can’t be played like a fiddle we can certainly have one,” says Shenkman.  “I, for one, know that’s the kind of country in which I want to live.” 

Award-winning investigative reporter and New York Times bestselling author Rick Shenkman is the editor and founder of George Mason University's History News Network, a website that features articles by historians on current events. An associate professor of history at George Mason University, he appears regularly as a commentator on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. His books include Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of American History and Presidential Ambition: How the Presidents Gained Power, Kept Power and Got Things Done.  His observations about the 2008 election can be followed on his blog, How Stupid?. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

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