Americans Say Iraq War Not Worth It -LA Times Poll

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A majority of U.S. voters now say it was not worth going to war in Iraq and feel the United States is getting bogged down there, according to a Los Angeles Times poll published on Friday.

In the survey of 1,230 registered voters conducted across the country from Saturday through Tuesday, 53 percent said it was not worth going to war in Iraq while 43 percent said it was and 4 percent said they did not know. The sample has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

The paper said the survey was the first time one of its voter surveys found a majority of voters doubting whether the situation in Iraq was worth the United States going to war there.

In a March L.A. Times survey 53 percent of voters said the war was worth fighting and 43 percent said it was not, a reverse of the current figure.

The paper said that 35 percent of American voters thought the United States was making good progress in Iraq while 61 percent said the country was getting bogged down there.

But 52 percent of voters said that they thought the United States was winning the war in Iraq and less than one in four said the insurgents were winning.

Despite a growing sense that the war was not justified, voters did not advocate a quick pullout of Iraq.

Less than 20 percent said America should withdraw its troops within weeks. Seventy-three percent said that there should be no specific date for withdrawal because disorder and civil war could result.

Fifty-five percent of voters said they disapproved of President Bush's handling of the war, while 44 percent approved.

Freepers who live in the LA area should send copies of this BS posing as a poll to the boards of the big corporate advertisers and this article. Then, ask them if their stockholders know that they are supporting liars instead of news people with their ad $'s.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1149807/posts

Tribune falls after warning, downgrade, (LA Slimes and Chicago Tribune)

CBS.MarketWatch.com. ^ | 8 June 2004 | Russ Britt

Posted on 06/08/2004 8:30:53 AM PDT by Grampa Dave

Tribune falls after warning, downgrade

By Russ Britt, CBS.MarketWatch.com

Last Update: 11:01 AM ET June 8, 2004

LOS ANGELES (CBS.MW) -- Shares of Tribune Co. dropped 4 percent Tuesday in the wake of the newspaper publisher's warning on sales projections and a downgrade from a Wall Street analyst.

Chicago-based Tribune (TRB: news, chart, profile) fell $1.88 to $46.80 after the company said Monday it expects sales growth to be slower than expected within its publishing group and will have to take a $10 million to $15 million charge in the second quarter to make up for it.

That prompted A.G. Edwards analyst Michael Kupinski to downgrade Tribune stock to "hold" from "buy." Kupinski said, however, that Tribune's downside should be "limited."

"In our view, the likely catalyst toward higher stock valuations will be positive earnings surprises and sequential growth in quarterly revenues," Kupinski wrote in a note issued Tuesday. "Patient investors willing to wait an upturn in revenue growth at the company, which appears possible in a favorable economic environment, are encouraged to retain positions."

The publisher of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune said it will take the charge because it is reducing expense growth from 5.5 percent down to 3 percent. Tribune officials said, however, they still expect to fall within analyst estimates for the quarter.

Tribune is cutting 200 staff positions, undertaking newsprint conservation programs and reducing spending in all departments. Company officials said the growth plans that existed earlier in the year weren't meeting expectations.

"Although help wanted advertising is improving month-over-month, and preprints year-to-date are delivering strong growth, other advertising categories are not meeting the aggressive plans we had for the year," Jack Fuller, president of Tribune Publishing, said in a statement. "The shortfall is limited to a few newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times."

Tribune expects sales growth of roughly 4 percent for the full year.

The company put out its warning as it announced sales were up 3.2 percent for a roughly monthlong period ended May 23.

Russ Britt is the Los Angeles Bureau Chief for CBS.MarketWatch.com.

They didn't ask me either, but let's consider some facts. Going into the country has probably saved America from how many attacks that would have came? It's like a maintenance question - how much are you willing to spend on prevention? A person doesn't buy a car and expect to drive it till the tires fall off, the risks involved are a matter of common sense -just as not stopping a the previous home base(Iraq) of terrorism support and training was.
9/11 proved that as soon as they could, they'd be attacking America and shoving radical, perverted, Islam down our throat. So we went right for the throat of the cowardly group, (that refuses to wear a uniform so that we can recognixe them, or that they may take perverted pride in who they really are) and have ripped the heart out of the cause. What we are leaving on the way out the door is choice - choose freedom and be someone in the world community in the 21^stcentury, or return to living under a rock in a third world country where death is the only thing with any appeal left to it. The choice is a no brainer. Some of the benefits should include being well on our way to stopping terrorism, and respect from the rest of the world, because we do what we say we're going to do - U.N.like some despicable groups.

But 52 percent of voters said that they thought the United States was winning the war in Iraq and less than one in four said the insurgents were winning.

Wonder how much lower that "the ~~insurgents~~ terrorists are winning" would be if the public knew that over 1/3 of that "800 dead" were accidents (electrocution, accidental drowning, vehicular accidents, falling, heart attack, pneumonia...) some of which occurred in Kuwait (and in one case a woman who appears on some of those lists was hit by a vehicle while crossing US-69 in Kansas.

This does not lessen the tragedy of their deaths but it does put into perspective just how unsuccessful the enemy has been (and how eager the left is to see the bodycount RISE).

Looking over the other deaths, many are from rocket attacks, grenade launchers, and improvised land mines. I thought the left was against land mines, why don't they criticize the Baathists, Al Qaida for using them?

There are also several incidents where US troops were killed by false surrenders. Remember that the next time you read that a soldier was too quick on the trigger and shot a "civilian".

Media Schadenfreude and Media Shenanigans PING

The media has a horse in this race and it is NOT the US military...

June 12, 2004
Two For the Price of One

On June 10, the Los Angeles Times published poll findings that purported to show John Kerry with a seven-point lead over President Bush. The Times headlined its poll "Voters Shift in Favor of Kerry." The poll results were reported world-wide, generally as fact, notwithstanding that other polls, less well publicized, have shown very different results.

The administration's chief pollster, Matthew Dowd, called the Times poll a "mess," noting that it had obviously over-sampled Democrats.

The next day, June 11, the L.A. Times published another poll, this one headlined: "Going to War Not Worth It, More Voters Say." In this poll, respondents said by a 53% to 43% margin that the Iraq war was "not worth it." This poll, too, was reported world-wide, and hundreds of newspapers reported as fact that a majority of Americans had turned against the war.

But, as the eagle-eyed Dafydd ab Hugh points out, it doesn't appear that the Times ran two polls at all:

Here is an interesting point about a "pair" of recent LA Times polls:

They published one poll result that said that Kerry was seven points ahead of Bush. This is the poll that Matthew Dowd showed was patently fraudulent. Mathematically, it's very simple to prove: Bush is ahead of Kerry among Republicans more than Kerry is ahead of Bush among Democrats; and Bush is ahead of Kerry among Independents. The only way to combine those three results and get Kerry strongly ahead of Bush is if the Times's poll wildly oversamples Democrats (if the two groups were roughly equal, then Bush's lead among Independents and the fact that he picks up more Democrats than Kerry picks up Republicans would put Bush ahead, not Kerry).

Then yesterday, they published was seems to be a second, completely different poll showing that a majority of Americans think the Iraq war was unwarranted.

But there's one amazing oddity about these two polls: they were conducted on the same day -- and they interviewed exactly the same number of registered voters.

The Bush vs. Kerry poll: "The Times Poll contacted 1,477 adults nationwide, including 1,230 registered voters by telephone June 5 through 8, 2004." The Iraq war poll: "The Times Poll, supervised by polling director Susan Pinkus, surveyed 1,230 registered voters from Saturday through Tuesday."

A quick glance at a calendar shows that Saturday was June 5th, while Tuesday was June 8th. Same days... exact same number of registered voters contacted... say, do you think it just barely possible that this was -- the same poll? Of course, that can't be true; the Times would never take the same poll, split it over two days, and make it look as if it were two different polls, a drumbeat of polls, a murder of polls, showing a continuing erosion of support for Bush's war and for Bush himself. That would be unethical "pseudo-journalism," and I'm morally certain that the editor of the LA Times, John S. Carroll, would never tolerate such a thing.

Is this important? Sure. Polls shape perceptions, and perceptions are critical to election campaigns. The Times, in its article about the "second" poll on Iraq, noted that the 10% "not worth it" margin was the opposite of the results of its own November 2003 and March 2004 polls, when respondents said the war was "worth it" by the same margin. The Times announced that this showed a critical slippage in Americans' support for the war. More likely, what it showed was a slippage in the integrity with which the Times conducts its polls. But hardly anyone understands the intricacies of polling; all that most people see is the headline that the poll generates. So the Times' stratagem probably worked.
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