Poll: Opposition to War at All-Time High
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Opposition among Americans to the war in Iraq has reached a new high, with only about a third of respondents saying they favor it, according to a poll released Monday. Just 35 percent of 1,033 adults polled say they favor the war in Iraq; 61 percent say they oppose it — the highest opposition noted in any CNN poll since the conflict began more than three years ago.
We’ve got some work to do, if Americans are losing sight of what is at stake in Iraq to that overwhelming of a percentage. Anti-war blogs, who so desperately want Iraq to be a failure..ammo against the President, ya know… are eating this up. Of course anti-war blogs have been spitting out the same line for 3 years now, so I don’t really see why this particular poll is filling them with such feelings of vindication.
I’m not one to attack the fairness of polls, but I will challenge the way CNN wrote this story. This interpetation of the data for example, is partisan discourse thinly disguised as honest reporting:
A bare majority (51 percent) say they see Bush as a strong leader, but on most other attributes he gets negative marks. (Interactive: Poll results) Most Americans (54 percent) don’t consider him honest, most (54 percent) don’t think he shares their values and most (58 percent) say he does not inspire confidence.
When Americans opine that the President is a strong leader, it is a “bare majority.” Any other negative views of President Bush, however, are portrayed as overwhelming.
I suppose that hoping for CNN to clean up its act would be wishful thinking….
Go ahead and attack the fairness of polls, they are wrong as often as not. This one cites a +/- 3% error, maeaning the split is essentially even on Bush ratings.
The CNN article moans about Bush’s low rating at 42%. They do mention that the last two polls had him lower, but fail to mention that this is trend that shows a steady increase over the last few months. They also fail to mention the ratings are pretty standard for a two term president halfway through his second term.
As for the Iraq War ratings, the title of your post pretty much says it all. “Time to roll up our sleeves”, is correct. Given that our MSM constantly reports only negative war stories, I’m surprised that the percentage is not higher. We need to get more stories such as the Blackfive interview with the Gunnery Sgt. Duane in front of these people being polled.
Meanwhile, be thankful that this president doesn’t lead by what the latest cooked up poll says.
54% with a margin of error equal to +/- 3%= Most Americans. That’s liberal math. Polls and statistics are great – just figure out what the answer is and work back from there.
I do like the fine line 51 is bare majority but 54 is an unmitigated most (the +/-3 is just icing). I’d be real interested in what the phrasing on the support question was. Was it 61% oppose the war and want us out now, or 61% oppose the way its being handled, or 61% don’t like the way the war is going and would rather we weren’t at war.
The media coverage of course is shaping public opinion. Anti-Bush media outlets and reporters are shaping their own “battlespace” with terminology choices, top story placement, and other aspects of journalism tradecraft to tweak reports on Iraq. A solid, persuasive and confidence-building leadership can turn this around, but the big brass stays quiet, and the President is mincing words these days.
One good “balancer” was run by CSPAN today: a briefing on Iraq by Royal Marines General Robert Fry. We don’t see enough of this clear articulation of strategic goals and forceful defense of military efforts in Iraq. Video date is 15 August, available on CSPAN.
Pro-Victory: What Does It Mean?
John got me thinking with his recent post on liberal math: the latest polls suggest that the overwhelming majority of Americans are against the war. (Actually it’s 54% +/- 3% but when you apply the liberal filter that equates to “most Amer…
I just think the Bush adminstration needs to go on the offensive against these clowns in the media. Other than maybe the press conference the other day, I haven’t seen the President out there on the offensive to counter the propaganda. Then again, it’s very hard to get your point of view out in the MSM when you go against their agenda.
It’s election time too and once again we are seeing the vicious cycle of using the Iraq war for political gain.
There are many people in this country who are asleep at the wheel again. There many people who hate their own country and just don’t care because they are so obsessed with hating Bush (to include the media). There are some people who are naive, who have no concept of what war/warfare is, who believe the garbage in the media, and who are sick and tired of all the negativity.
I think the strategy will have to be to some how wake up the people who are asleep at the wheel before they get woken up from another disaster such as 9/11. There are so many people who even after 9/11 are completely oblivous to the world. Bin Laden was just given permission by an Islamic cleric in Saudi Arabia to kill 10 million Americans. You’ll find more souls in this country completely oblivious that this was in the news today.
Then you need somehow inform the last group of people that you REALLY need think twice about what is being said in the media. How to do this is a good question.
I think a British general was on the Pentagon Channel a few months ago…I wonder if it was the same guy…I’ll have to check that.
Anyway, if you want support for the war to increase, then you have to find a way of stopping Shiites and Sunnis from killing each other.
Love Fox News or hate them, you will not find that kind of bias on their programs or website.
I wish pollsters would ask more specific questions.
If one asked me, “Do you approve of how the President is handling the war?”, I’d have to respond, “No, I do not.” Not because I do not support the war. I do. But I think Bush is not fighting it hard enough.
Qaddafi’s probably kicking himself for giving up his nuke program. Right after Saddam’s regime went down, America looked big and scary. Now we look like dithering wimps.
The President was elected to GOVERN, not stare at polls and worry about what the MSM has to say. He needs to make war.
Fox News is every bit as partisan as CNN, it just happens to go the other way.
I would believe the poll turned out this way because most Americans are against what is taking place in Iraq right, now, yet they are not against fighting terrorists. Most do not link the two battles.
How is it that 2/3 of Americans think Saddam had strong links to al Qaeda and only 40 something percent of them support the war?
Either one of the polls is wrong or there is at least 20% of people who think it was ok for Saddam to have supported al Qaeda and stayed in power.
Either way, we have a (sad to say) at least a few million people in this country who literallly believe everything they hear in the news and this is absolutley dangerous if left uncombatted. I could go on for hours about how lazy, uneducated and biased the great majority of our press is…
Hmmm… interpretation of this poll depends on how the question was asked.
Most people I know, lib and con, support the war efforts as something that needed to be done, and that we need to finish.
What we don’t agree on is how we are prosecuting the war.
So, we could argue that a significant majority is opposed to how we are prosecuting the war. Even though that same majority, in general, support the war.
Interesting dicotomy of opinion on this one.
‘most Americans are against what is taking place in Iraq right now’
I’m going to act oblvious right now and ask the following questions…
So what is going on in Iraq right now?
How would you compare this to other conflicts in terms of failure/success and bloodshed?
Also, could you tell me who specifically ‘prosecutes’ the war?
I’d argue a lot of the “problem” of supporting the “war”, a necessary evil in a democracy, especially with an All-Volunteer Force, is the methods in which the Administration has garnered public support. “We will go to war, nevermind the realities…” so when the realities become apparent where is the well-spring of support? It’s a shallow well by design. The manipulation of the media in the early years (!!) is evident by the linkage TODAY of AQ and Iraq (mentioned by Mark above).
The issue here is largely on how the war was “sold” and how public opinion was enlisted to support the conflict.
The public largely has no idea what is really going on in Iraq. They don’t know the tactics that are working or those that aren’t. They don’t know or really understand how the place *now* fits into the puzzle of terrorism and they don’t understand the world isn’t black and white, terrorist or not. Why? Because those who tell the story, from Administration to media, don’t think the public needs to know or wants to know.
We’re now seeing the media, well, become media again. Right or wrong, twisted or plain fact, it’s becoming the media once again. Polls can show anything you want so too much faith placed in them will simply give you unnecessary heartburn. Polling is a science, but so is how questions are framed and the specific questions. OpFor John got it right with “how CNN wrote” it.
The public has soured on the war because of the gap between expectations and reality. Bush lied has way into it with the WMD claims and the phony link between 9/11 and Saddam. His people told everyone it would be a cakewalk. So most people essentially said, “Okay go do it, wake me up with it’s over.”
All of that has turned out to be false, plus the price of gas has doubled since the whole thing started. The national finances are going down the tubes because of the cost, although no one’s really reporting it.
Now people are paying more attention, and they see Vietnam all over again. Open ended mission, civil war, divided country, lying president. Same old shit, different part of the world. The big difference is that now there’s no draft, so there’s no ground-level opposition among the youth and therefore no “counterculture” to speak of.
The right-wingers who favor the Iraq War keep running against Jane Fonda. If Cindy Sheehan didn’t exist you’d have had to invent her. But her antics are of no consequence. The public doesn’t support this thing because it’s too expensive and there’s a growing fear that our participation will cause more problems than it will solve.
One irony is this: You know how the war supporters shouted Ted Koppel down when he did that program a while back showing the list of the dead? Well guess what? It worked. Now there is very little talk about the dead or of the wounded. They come back in the middle of the night and everyone ignores them.
I don’t know if you wanted to be ignored, but that’s what you’ve gotten. Be careful what you wish for.
Read and savour the last two posts for the definition of oblivious. None of my questions answered either.
Given the consistent record of past polling disasters by CNN I am less than worried about this poll. I wonder how many Americans are dissatisfied with the war because its being waged by having our military’s hands tied behind their backs? Well CNN wasn’t going to ask that little followup question. As for Bush’s performance as CIC, he may not be great till you look at Kerry or Gore. Then I’d wade through hell with him in gasoline filled shorts.
Love Fox News or hate them, you will not find that kind of bias on their programs or website.
Cynthia ยท August 22, 2006 09:33 PM
That has got to be one of the more ignorant statements I have witnessed in quite a long while. Fox News is anything but news. If you think it is news, or worthy of using as a source, then you are certainly more deluded than those that feel we can win a war against a tactic. If you are deluded into believing either of these myths there may not be much hope for you at all.