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It's not unusual to hear the name Noam Chomsky in the same breath as "extreme left-wing" or "out-of-the-mainstream," but it may surprise you to know that Chomsky himself doesn't agree:

[I]t turns out that, you know, I'm pretty much in the mainstream of public opinion on most issues. I'm not on some, not on gun control or creationism or something like that, but on most crucial issues.

If true, it means that American public opinion is generally much more left-of-center than the so-called left-wing media is willing to admit.

Here are some highlights of a recent interview with Chomsky. See if you agree:

On George Bush and Iraq...

George Bush would be in severe political trouble if there were an opposition political party in the country. Just about every day, they're shooting themselves in the foot. The striking fact about contemporary American politics is that the Democrats are making almost no gain from this...[T]he Democrats are so close in policy to the Republicans that they can't do anything about it. When they try to say something about Iraq, George Bush turns back to them, or Karl Rove turns back to them, and says, "How can you criticize it? You all voted for it." And, yeah, they're basically correct.

On how the Democrats can become more effective...

Democrats read the polls way more than I do...They could take a stand that's supported by public opinion instead of opposed to it. Then they could become an opposition party, and a majority party. But then they're going to have to change their position on just about everything.

On health care...

A large majority of the population is in favor of a national health care system of some kind. And that's been true for a long time. But whenever that comes up — it's occasionally mentioned in the press — it's called "politically impossible," or "lacking political support," which is a way of saying that the insurance industry doesn't want it, the pharmaceutical corporations don't want it, and so on. Okay, so a large majority of the population wants it, but who cares about them?

On the War on Terror...

[T]hat's a way to deal with the War on Terror, namely, increase terror. And the obvious metric, the number of terrorist attacks, yeah, they've succeeded in increasing terror...

The fact of the matter is that there is no War on Terror. It's a minor consideration. So invading Iraq and taking control of the world's energy resources was way more important than the threat of terror...

[W]e are under a rigid doctrine in the West, a religious fanaticism, that says we must believe that the United States would have invaded Iraq even if its main product was lettuce and pickles, and the oil resources of the world were in Central Africa. Anyone who doesn't believe that is condemned as a conspiracy theorist, a Marxist, a madman, or something.

On WMDs in Iraq...

We're told that they didn't find weapons of mass destruction. Well, that's not exactly correct. They did find weapons of mass destruction, namely, the ones that had been sent to Saddam by the United States, Britain, and others through the 1980s. A lot of them were still there. They were under control of U.N. inspectors and were being dismantled.

But many were still there. When the U.S. invaded, the inspectors were kicked out, and Rumsfeld and Cheney didn't tell their troops to guard the sites. So the sites were left unguarded, and they were systematically looted.

On withdrawing from Iraq...

[A]ny discussion of withdrawal from Iraq has to at least enter the real world, meaning, at least consider these issues [such as a loose Middle Eastern Shiite alliance controlling most of the world's oil]. Just take a look at the commentary in the United States, across the spectrum. How much discussion do you see of these issues? Well, you know, approximately zero, which means that the discussion is just on Mars. And there's a reason for it. We're not allowed to concede that our leaders have rational imperial interests. We have to assume that they're good-hearted and bumbling.

On his biggest regret...

I would have done more. Because the problems are so serious and overwhelming that it's disgraceful not to do more about it.