May 25th NYT POLL Opposition to Iraq HUGE, Democrats not benefiting

"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation with Iraq?"

CBS News - New York Times Poll. May 18-23, 2007. N=1,125 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults).

PollingReport.Com
http://pollingreport.com/iraq.htm

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...but the opposition in Iraq FAILS to help Democrats. Note that Bush approval is slightly higher
than that for Congress (top right). This is slightly reversed in the Harris Poll (lower right) but
take a look at who is on top of the public official approval rating, Condi Rice.



National Barometer PollingReport.com
http://pollingreport.com/national.htm

Bush's mindless drones will hate Congress because it has a Democratic majority and the Democrats (we peons)
are pissed as hell over Iraq. All that leads to softer numbers for Congress but it would be much worse if
so many people didn't despise the GOP these days.

John Q Citizen is asking him/herself, "What are these guys up to?

I voted to get the hell out of Iraq and they cave in."

It's an amazing sign of weakness and the utterly bizarre. The opponent
is on the ropes and you take a weekend off to pat yourself on the back.

Very sad indeed.

to do with regard to withdrawal from Iraq. Three fourths of the country wants us out, but a plurality of the public don't want Dems to withhold funds? I'll be damned if I can figure this out. The only way to bring an end to this disaster is to defund it, but that doesn't seem to be what the public wants either.

I do think that the Dem leadership could have done a better job at making the case that there was already enough money in the pipeline for an orderly withdrawal. But, what're you gonna do?

that the country DOES want to get out of iraq but not look like losers in the process. whether or not that's possible is the question.

who went to the White House & delivered a message from their constituents, something to the effect of "we're prepared to lose this one, just bring our troops home". And I agree with the sentiment. The Dems would have caught some bad press if they'd sent the same bill (timelines included) back to *, but hell, they should be used to that by now.

First, no case has been made aggressively.

It's easy: "Bush wants money to get more American soldiers killed. We want money to bring them home."

Here are figures on that question, funds:

""Which of these comes closest to your opinion? Congress should block all funding for the war in Iraq no matter what. Congress should allow funding, but only on the condition that the U.S. sets benchmarks for progress and the Iraqi government are meeting those goals. OR, Congress should allow all funding for the war without any benchmark conditions."


Withdraw all funds: 13%

Funds with benchmarks: 69%

Funds unrestricted: 15%

Not sure: 3%

So it's 82% get out. People know that Iraq is a mess and will stay that way. But this is without putting Webb forward or someone with guts to make a hard case.

We're blowing it, I'm very sad to say. That can change. Maybe they'll get a load of what their
constituents think on the holiday.

who gets to determine when said "benchmarks" have been met? I mean, Gates is already out in public telling us not to expect miracles by the fall; and I think that is merely an attempt to lower expectations in anticipation of the September report from Gen. Petraeus.

They're telling us to expect an increase in casualties in the coming months, because the insurgents want to try to influence our policy (what policy?) in Iraq.

I agree with you that we are indeed "blowing it" as you say, but the American people seem pretty fickled on this one.

I'm a glass is half full and bursting at the seems guy on the pulic response to Iraq. The skilled
association with Sadam and 911 got 'em before the war along with the nuke scare. That still left a
strong minority against the war. When you have the Washington Post and the New York Times lying their
asses off to support Bush and the sneaky rhetoric, John Q Citizen is swayed, to a degree.

Yet they figures out the lies quickly and there's been a strong disapproval of the war for quite a
while.

There is no dialog on this. It's all WH and MSM monolog. If we'd do some educating, thek 'benchmark'
business would go away and if we'd talk about the $99 a bag charge for laundry from Haliburton, we'd
also have some clout but nobody gets air time with this who can because we're being 'reasonable.

The public is leading on broad strokes and it can on particulars too but it will take a couple of
months more. Shame we're blowing it. Go figure.

Hardly. They've stomped & kicked it to death. And the amazing thing is our leaders didn't expect any blowbacl. They're said to be stunned. Color them surprised.

Can you blame 'em :evilgrin:

escalate this situation is taking money from the troops and leaving them high and dry is going unchallenged and thus those results. Unfortunately, some of the dems are justifying their votes based on this republican lie and aren't dispelling the lies. I wish all democrats wanted to do the right thing. Some supporting bush/Cheney and the majority supporting some movement on withdrawal isn't working. Thus the low numbers as they please no one.

We're at 35% below Condi Rice! I'd say it's time to go on offense, with flair and abandon.

I guess the fact that the funding is only until September is supposed to mean something.

And I've got a half-dozen problems here on the "homefront" I've got to deal with personally.

Color me "fed-up" for the next week at least.

When the hell did Cheney crawl from 18% to 25%? Does having a new grandkid make a difference?? :shrug: WTF?

And Rice is a degreed dumbbell when it comes to world affairs, as we've been told by insiders.

That's the only way to look at it at this point.

They'll get an ear full at home this weekend.

Enjoy!

isn't really going to support the troops. According to Jeremy Scahill, .40 cents of every dollar being spent for the so-called war on terror, goes to private contractors.

Jeremy Scahill was on NPR Fresh Air Monday 3/19/07 to talk about his book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8992128


Another way to frame this...
The Bush administration said that the cost of rebuilding New Orleans's levees to federal standards has nearly tripled to $10 billion and that there may not be enough money to fully protect the entire region.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/30/AR2006033001912.html

Most people would think $10 Billion is a lot of money.

Now ask the average person how much it takes to fund the war in Iraq. Most don't know that it costs $2 Billion a week! That's $8 Billion per Month! That's $96 Billion per YEAR!!!
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/09/28/cost_of_iraq_war_nearly_2b_a_week/

And .40 cents of every dollar is going to private contractors like Halliburton and KBR. So who is benefiting from this war?

Can we impeach yet?

Or as Steve Austin say, "Hell Yeah!!!

I still say they had little choice at this point in time and did what they could and once again the citizens of this country are just not realizing just what this country is up against.

If one expects a fair fight they are bound to be dissapointed, it hasn't been fair for quite some time way before two thousand.