Dunce-Cap Nation

For our What You Need to Know Now cover story, we asked our polling firm to test 1,001 adults on a variety of topics, including politics, foreign affairs, business, technology and popular culture. The results were mixed, to be charitible. NEWSWEEK's first What You Need to Know Poll found many gaps in America's knowledge—including a lingering misperception about an Iraqi connection to the September 11 terror attacks, an inability to name key figures in the American government and general cultural confusion.

Even today, more than four years into the war in Iraq, as many as four in 10 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.

Still, seven in 10 (70 percent) are aware that the United States has not discovered any hidden weapons of mass destruction in Iraq since the war began. And perhaps because most (85 percent) are aware that Osama bin Laden remains at large, roughly half of the poll's respondents (52 percent) think that the United States is losing the fight against his terror group, Al Qaeda, despite no military defeats or recent terrorist attacks to suggest as much.

Closer to home, more Americans are able to name Jordin Sparks as the winner of the most recent season of American Idol (18 percent) than can identify John Roberts as the Supreme Court's chief justice (11 percent). Only one in three (31 percent) know that Ben Bernanke is the current Federal Reserve chairman; a quarter (26 percent) think Alan Greenspan, who retired in early 2006, still holds the position. Still, more than half of those polled (59 percent) could identify Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker in a multiple-choice question. (Younger respondents had a harder time with this question though, with 46 percent of those under 40 able to identify Pelosi compared to 68 percent of those older than 40.)

One third of the public (36 percent) correctly answered a multiple-choice question showing they knew that both Al Gore and Andrew Jackson had lost a presidential election despite winning more popular votes. A similar number (37 percent) could identify Abraham Lincoln as the first Republican elected president.

Our understanding of broader global affairs and history is sketchy at best. Less than half (42 percent) of the public was aware that Iraq only existed as an independent nation since 1920; 15 percent think Iraq existed as a country before and nearly half (43 percent) refrained from even guessing. Conversely, more than half (60 percent) could identify Vladimir Putin as Russia's leader. Only three in 10 (29 percent) are aware that nine countries posses nuclear weapons. Four in 10 (38 percent) think only five countries posses such technology; 21 percent put the number of nuclear countries at 11.