This post today by Instapundit cracked me up. Apparently those who think the war is going well or fairly well after the surge went from 30% to 40%.
Glenn notes
That isn’t huge, but it’s significant.
I would humbly disagree. This is a HUGE and significant number! 10%. In one lousy month of relative positive developments without the surge even being fully implemented.
The American people do like to vote for a winner. So let’s just win this and move on!
UPDATE: Heh Glenn, thanks for the Instalaunch! Speaking of feeling like a winner! LOL
For the Dems to win in 2008 – the war must be lost.
“For the Dems to win in 2008 – the war must be lost.”
Honestly, for the Dems to LOSE, they’d have to screw up (which is never beyond them, going by recent electoral history). The war’s been so horribly mismanaged that “success” means “making sure Iraq isn’t completely out of control.” This isn’t what “success” was in 2003 or even 2005.
Yes, there is an uptick in optimism for the war. But the Pew poll Instapundit cites is fairly negative –
http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/312.pdf
Question 22 – “Do you think the U.S. made the right decision or the wrong decision in using military forces against Iraq?” 53 percent say yes – as high as its ever been in the history of the poll. The same percentage agree, in Question 23, with the sentiment “Bring the troops home.”
Worse still from the “good news” is the original article talked about:
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=313
For that particular question, “how well is the military effort going,” that 40 percent mark is only a high-water mark if you go back to around mid-2006 – it was markedly higher before.
Yes, its a modest increase in hope. But its barely a turn-around. People are rightfully pessimistic about a war where “winning” has been defined to nearly nothing and the best the pro-war advocates can do is cite to a single data point of positive news in a very glum poll.
DU
I agree.
I think it has also changed the media narrative a little. The number of deaths in Iraq yesterday is not the lead headline every day now. This could support itself.
If we had some eggs, we could have some ham and eggs, if we had some ham.
I know the pony is there and anyone who says otherwise is not going to heaven
We have wall-to-wall Anna Nicole Smith on the news. The war must be going well.
I concur with above comment.
I agree with all comments here. Finally some good thoughts. The whole problems no matter who wins. They are no good candidates to come out the woodwork yet. Hilary come on guys. The good ol’ boys with their oil money wont let this fly.
To all – thanks for the great comments! I do like it when people agree with me. And I have a few new websites to check out too. Always fun.
Actually the opinion shift is 33 percent and not 10 percent.
Yet you fail to post what else was written…
” …ten-percent shift in one month is huge. Well, maybe. It would certainly be portrayed as huge if it had gone the other way!”
If your going to copy and paste a comment, you might as well paste the whole thing.
It’s hard to disagree with this statement actually. If it was 10% the other way, it would be front page and top story everywhere – don’t pretent otherwise.
To xGORDOx,
who are you talking to? Who failed to post a full comment here?
It’s still only 40%.
Which is still a 10% increase in Americans thinking things are going well.
hi alllllllllll