Things are moving, inside the US body politic. In a good direction. Not nearly as fast as I would have hoped… But still, in the right direction.
Today, the WaPo and ABC News released the results of their latest public opinion poll, conducted between June 2 and June 5. Here’s the lead on the WaPo story:
- For the first time since the war in Iraq began, more than half of the American public believes the fight there has not made the United States safer, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
While the focus in Washington has shifted from the Iraq conflict to Social Security and other domestic matters, the survey found that Americans continue to rank Iraq second only to the economy in importance — and that many are losing patience with the enterprise.
Nearly three-quarters of Americans say the number of casualties in Iraq is unacceptable, while two-thirds say the U.S. military there is bogged down and nearly six in 10 say the war was not worth fighting — in all three cases matching or exceeding the highest levels of pessimism yet recorded. More than four in 10 believe the U.S. presence in Iraq is becoming analogous to the experience in Vietnam.
Perhaps most ominous for President Bush, 52 percent said war in Iraq has not contributed to the long-term security of the United States, while 47 percent said it has. It was the first time a majority of Americans disagreed with the central notion Bush has offered to build support for war: that the fight there will make Americans safer from terrorists at home.
It is worth registering as a WaPo online reader to look at this graphic, which tracks Bush’s approval rating since February 2001, and identified the effects of certain notable events like Sept 11, the start of the war in Afghanistan, the start of the war against Iraq, etc. Each of those events seemed to give the Prez a boost, btw, tho it’s hard to disaggregate the effects of the first two, which happened very close together.
The Dec. 2003 announcement of the capture of Saddam also gave GWB a boost, of some 7 or 8%.
The only time before now that his overall approval ratings were notably below 50% was in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib revelations (which interestingly were NOT identified as a discrete event on the WaPo graphic.)
Now, he’s down to 48% approve, while 50% disapprove and only 1% claim to have “no opinion” re approval/disapproval.
Of course, it would help tremendously if we had a robust opposition party in this country that was clearly identified with both an alternative set of policies and an alternative worldview.
We don’t. We have the Dems, who are still stumbling along seemingly not sure what to do about the war.
Still, there is a little movement in Congress as well as in public opinion on the Iraq issue, as I noted in this May 27 post. There, I noted that 128 members of the House of Representatives had voted for a resolution that called on the President to
- develop a plan as soon as practicable after the date of the enactment of this Act to provide for the withdrawal of United States Armed Forces from Iraq…
Significantly, five of the people voting for that were Republicans…
Meantime, though, several prominent Dems are still calling for more US troops to be sent to Iraq.
As I said, the “progress” on the Iraq issue here is slow… But at least it’s in the right direction.
The US public seems finbally to be waking up from the almost narcotic stupor it seemed to be in on voting day back last November.
The WaPo is also posting the details of the most recent poll, which are worth looking at.
For example (Qun 2), 62% disapprove of GWB’s handling of the social security issue, and 58% each disapprove of his handling of Iraq, and the economy. 49% disapprove of his handling of counter-terrorism.
On Iraq, 58% disapproval equals the highest it’s ever been, which it previously was on 1/16/05 (just before the Iraqi elections) and 5/23/04 (at the time of the Abu Ghraib revelations).
The 49% disapproval on counter-terrorism (as against 50% approval) is the highest it’s ever been, topping the 48% figure he got in the poll of 6/20/04.
Asked (Qun 3) what should be the highest priority for Bush and Congress this year, the respondents were given five listed choices, including Iraq, and also invited to say “something else” if they wanted. 24% said “Iraq”, topped only by 30% for “the economy”.
Qun 8 is interesting. “Overall, which party… do you trust to do a better job… over the next few years?” The Dems have surged up since the question was last asked, last August. The response in the latest poll was Dems, 46%; Repubs, 41%. I guess the question only gets asked with a limited frequency. But the Dems haven’t previously been ahead of the Repubs on this question since April 2001.
And then, there’s Qun. 15:
All in all… do you think the war with Iraq was worth fighting, or not? Do you feel that way STRONGLY or SOMEWHAT?
|
worth fighting
|
not worth fighting
|
no op. | |||||
| strongly | somewhat | total | total | somewhat | strongly | ||
| 6/5/05 | 29 | 12 | 41 | 58 | 12 | 46 | 1 |
| 4/24/05 | 31 | 13 | 44 | 54 | 12 | 42 | 2 |
| 3/13/05 | 34 | 11 | 45 | 53 | 11 | 42 | 2 |
| 1/16/05 | 32 | 12 | 44 | 55 | 10 | 45 | 1 |
| 12/19/04 | 31 | 11 | 42 | 56 | 10 | 47 | 2 |
| 10/3/04 (likely voters) | 34 | 15 | 49 | 48 | 11 | 37 | 3 |
| 9/26/04 (likely voters) | 36 | 12 | 48 | 50 | 7 | 43 | 2 |
| 8/29/04 | 34 | 14 | 48 | 50 | 11 | 39 | 2 |
| 7/25/04 | 36 | 13 | 49 | 48 | 11 | 37 | 3 |
| 6/20/04 | 32 | 14 | 47 | 52 | 13 | 39 | 2 |
| 5/23/04 | 35 | 13 | 48 | 50 | 13 | 37 | 1 |
It’s not just the Dems and the Bush administration that is failing
I don’t know where Warren’s head is pointed, but it certainly isn’t toward the truth. Control of the second-largest oil reserves in the world as well as
enhancing Israeli security make a lot more sense than promoting democracy as an explanation for what the USGov has actually done.
These democracy exporters find it very easy to cooperate with tyrants in Burma, Libya and Uzbekistan as long as their oil is flowing in the US direction. Including arming them.
It isn’t anti-semitism to point out that AIPAC has lobbied for US intervention in Iraq, Iran and Syria for years. It is interesting that Clinton’s lies about involvement with an intern were considered by right-wingers as high crimes and misdemeanors, but Bush’s invention of an “Axis of Evil” alliance of two actual enemies, Iran and Iraq and the hyping of a ten-years-dormant Iraqi nuclear program are so forgiveable. If they admire leaders that lie will they realize when the leaders are lying to themselves? Oh yes, and don’t assume those who criticize Bush sympathize
with fanatics like Zarqawi, Bin Laden, etc. Accusing your critics of treason is a universal tactic of totalitarians.
It hurts to say this, but I actually place more of my hope these days with the remaining realists in the Republican party than with any of the so-called “leadership” of the so-called “Democratic” party. I am slightly nauseated by the prospect of having to campaign and vote for Hillary Clinton in 2008. I’ll do it, I’m sure, like I did for Kerry in 2004. Then I’ll take another long shower. Hillary is not the answer to our problems. Paul Welllstone is dead, may God rest his soul. Some of these Republicans are smart enough to know that Bush Jr. has driven their cadillac off a cliff (irony of the day: what’s bad for the country is bad for General Motors), and I think they may just pull themselves together and do something about it. I hope so.
In addition to all the above, the Left is firmly In Love with tyrants like Saddam Hussein and Yassir Arafat, and tyrranical reactionaries like Hamas and Hizbollah. – Warren W
Not true for me. I have written three letters already to Senators Burr and Dole about the situation in Uzbekistan and how the US needs to stop propping that brutal evil man up. I told them we need to stop providing him with military aid and get our bases out of there. If we don’t, we will have the same situation in Uzbekistan that the US government created with Saddam in the 1980’s and the Taliban in the 1990’s.
When will they ever learn?
Hizbollah won the democractic elections in Lebanon. Either you are in favor of democracy or you are not……………
WarrenW, stop setting up silly straw men like “the Left”. Try answering points made on this board.
Your trumpeting the fact that “the Left” was wrong to rely on inspectors to find WMD because there were no WMD to be found is one of the . . . well, I’ll be kind and shut up.
WW: Your comment is such a mishmash of (perhaps deliberate?) illogic and obfuscation that it’s hard to make head or tail of it.
What the heck does this mean? The Left still knows the above list of falsehoods. The Right knows that the war in Iraq was to Liberate the Iraqi people and Fight Terrorism. Both are impossible.
What is the meaning of the term “know” in those two sentences?
And then, as others have noted, your whole set of allegations about “the Left” just seem like ways of avoiding discussion about the real issue of how, indeed, we are to set about dealing with people whose views might be very different from our own.
Do you have a suggestion there, WW? If you’re going to answer, “suppress them all!”, don’t bother. The Israelis, who have the third largest army in the world, tried that with Hizbullah and Hamas. It didn’t work. (In fact, it backfired badly, nearly every time they launched a big escalation against them.) So now, do you want to leap onto a white horse and singlehandedly finish the job that the Israelis, perhaps, were too lily-livered or too weak to complete?
Gimme a break.
There is a better way. It’s called respectful, principles-based discussion, negotiation, and relationship-building.
Thanks for printing the poll questions. If I’d been asked that, I would not have known how to answer. They ask if the war on Iraq was “worth fighting?” What does that mean? The invasion of Iraq amounted to trashing international law and was morally as well as prudentially WRONG.
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