Bush loses advantage in war on terrorism

By Richard Morin and Dan Balz

Public anxiety over mounting casualties in Iraq and doubts about long-term consequences of the war continue to rise and have helped to erase President Bush's once-formidable advantage over Sen. John F. Kerry concerning who is best able to deal with terrorist threats, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Exactly half the country now approves of the way Bush is managing the U.S. war on terrorism, down 13 percentage points since April, according to the poll. Barely two months ago, Bush comfortably led Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, by 21 points when voters were asked which man they trusted to deal with the terrorist threat. Today the country is evenly divided, with 48 percent preferring Kerry and 47 percent favoring Bush.

With fewer than 10 days before the United States turns over governing power to Iraq, the survey shows that Americans are coming to a mixed judgment about the costs and benefits of the war. Campaign advisers to both Bush and Kerry believe voters' conclusions about Bush and Iraq will play a decisive role in determining the outcome of the November election.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5264834/

Can someone post the pic of Shit-for-Brains at this link!!!!

Bushit's numbers will continue to drop til they hit the 34% mark of freeperville

when they realize the "transfer of sovereignty" doesn't mean the withdrawal of our troops. Lots of people here in the States, and even some in Iraq, I believe, are taking SmirkCo at his word and fully expect this "transfer" to signal the return of our troops. And of course, Smirk won't have anyone but himself to blame. . . same as he refuses to accept responsibility for pushing the Saddam = al Qaeda link, he'll be unable to refuse responsibility for this latest "miscommunication."

walking positions than he does on running America.

Thanks for posting.

...People are waking up and seeing that our world is less safe than it was before 9/11....a terrorist attack of huge scale on America, either here or abroad could actually "backfire" for the Bushies instead of pushing up their poll numbers as they probably think...

That is according to Professor Juan Cole, one of the few Americans who has a clue about real events in Iraq.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FF18Ak01.html

<...the primacy of the economic policy is something that I don't think is generally recognized. One of the reasons for getting rid of the Ba'ath army, according to Garner, was that they were afraid that the survival of any large Ba'ath institution like that might be an obstacle to the extreme liberalization of the economy. You can just imagine a situation in which the Americans wanted to denationalize Iraqi companies. If you had kept the Ba'ath army, they would come to the coalition and say, "No, you can't sell off these companies, my cousin helps to run them"... They thought that the army would remain a power center able to intervene in policy debates, on the side of state control of the economy. So they dissolved it not based on security purposes, but to remove a potential obstacle to Polish-style shock therapy. They brought Polish economic advisers - that's the reason for the Polish military involvement in Iraq. They tried to replicate the Polish experience.>

Please lose your advantage in this earlier thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x636843