Assorted New Poll Numbers: Not So Good for Administration
CBS News: Bush's approval falls to 34%; Cheney's falls to 18%; only 30% approve of handling of Iraq war; 51% think the President doesn't care about people like themselves.
Zogby: 72% of American troops in Iraq want us to pull out sometime in 2006; 29% think the U.S. military should leave immediately; nearly 90% "think war is retaliation for Saddam’s role in 9/11." (Considering Saddam had absolutely no role in 9/11, that last figure is especially disturbing.)
Survey USA: In 36 states a plurality of citizens feels that the administration's domestic wiretapping program clearly breaks the law.
My question: How does the average American mend this broken relationship with his or her leader? Forgive my cynicism, but do we just wait a few years then select one of two candidates who are no more inspiring than the man currently in office?
Zogby: 72% of American troops in Iraq want us to pull out sometime in 2006; 29% think the U.S. military should leave immediately; nearly 90% "think war is retaliation for Saddam’s role in 9/11." (Considering Saddam had absolutely no role in 9/11, that last figure is especially disturbing.)
Survey USA: In 36 states a plurality of citizens feels that the administration's domestic wiretapping program clearly breaks the law.
My question: How does the average American mend this broken relationship with his or her leader? Forgive my cynicism, but do we just wait a few years then select one of two candidates who are no more inspiring than the man currently in office?
posted by Tinley | 8:08 PM
2 Comments:
I sure would like to see Zogby's actual questions and polling methodology to see how the questions were phrased and what options were presented.
It is the question about retaliation for Saddam's role in 9/11 surprises me since, well, I am a Soldier and served in Iraq with Soldiers. I don't think I actually know anybody in uniform that thinks Saddam directly planned or financed the attacks on the twin towers or the Pentagon that killed nearly 3000 Americans. I never hear Soldiers discuss the war that way on their own and I never hear leaders talk to Soldiers in those terms. I would be absolutely flabbergasted to learn that there is such a large group so grossly mistaken.
Of course the war is indirectly tied to 9/11, and that's obvious whether you are for or against the war. If 9/11 had not happened and changed the nation's ways of thinking, I certainly doubt we would be in Iraq today. After 9/11, the administration and congress were unwilling to risk Saddam's decade-long intransigence on the WMD issue any longeror, and there was no longer any tolerance for his general support for Islamist trouble-making.
If 90% of Soldiers currently in Iraq really think that Saddam personally caused the attacks in New York and Washington, then we've got a large group of uninformed Soldiers (and a group that I have never encountered). That would make me question their judgement on other things, too, like how long we ought to stay in Iraq. (I do know Soldiers who have widely different opinions on that matter.)
Josh, your last paragraph on this post could apply not only to Americans, but also to United Methodists at Jurisdictional Conferences...and I've been one of 'em.
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