Nearly two-thirds in U.S. have given up on Iraq (two-thirds of U.S. are losers)

WASHINGTON - When President Bush delivers his next-to-last State of the Union address Tuesday night, he will confront this reality, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll: Nearly two-thirds of Americans appear to have given up on success in Iraq and also on his presidency.

In addition, the poll finds that nearly another two-thirds believe he shouldn’t move ahead with his troop increase to Iraq, if Congress passes a non-binding resolution opposing it. And it shows that just two in 10 want Bush taking the lead role in setting policy for the country.

“Essentially, the president is really in the cellar of public opinion,” says Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this poll with Republican Bill McInturff. “As he faces the audience for his State of the Union, he’s going to find a mood dramatically different to the mood that greeted him at his second inaugural.”

fight a war like WWII?

how is that going to help us stabilize Iraq? firebomb their cities and blockade their ports? that might kill alot of Iraqis but it will not make our war on terror any closer to success

this is a guerilla war. there is a huge difference in fighting a guerilla enemy than a conventional one.

all of these people talking about "PC wars" seem to not understand that, yes, we can start bombing Iraq into the stone age but it won't make Iraq a stable middle eastern republic that can be an ally. It will just turn Iraq into a destroyed state ready for the taking---like Afghanistan and Somalia

Unfortunately, the GOP congress people and, to some degree, the President himself must take some of the blame for this. The dims and the MSM daily, incessantly, non stop take cheap shots at the President and make a never ending effort to undermine him and his policies. The candy ass and useless GOP members of congress sit on their hands watching and trying to hide. Some of them even join in with the dims. Also, the President is unfortunately, slow to respond, if ever. Several months back, when the President would strike back, he always bounced back in the polls. Why he didn't continue to do this and even increase the frequency of his speeches is beyond me. Huge mistake. If you believe in your policy, you should stand up and defend it.

Predictably, the MSM is using its 'manufactured' polls to convince the American public that EVERYONE is against both the War in Iraq and President Bush . . . Don't believe it!

I encourage you to review new polling results from the most respected INDEPENDENT pollster in the business today:
THE BATTLEGROUND POLL 2007

Among other things, you will discover the following:

WAR IN IRAQ
46% war worth fighting
48% war not worth fighting
[. . . a even spit rather than a 70% majority against!]

53% of electorate coalesce around the President's stated goal of forces staying until the situation is confirmed stable (32%) or the President's plan for a troop surge to stabilize the situation quickly (21%) -- hardly looks like a repudiation of the President's approach to me?!

PRESIDENT BUSH
42% JA rating
45% Favorability rating
[FYI: For survey respondents, job approval and favorability ratings have become synonymous!]

61% LIKABILITY RATING
[FYI: The Battleground Poll remains the only poll that consistently tracks a president's 'likability rating'. All MSM pollsters produced likability ratings until their boy Clinton became president and couldn't get his LR above 40%!]

BattleGround Poll: Republican Strategic Analysis
By Ed Goeas

"Continuing a trend seen throughout his Presidency, the (President's) personal approval rating remains high at sixty-one (61%) of likely voters approving of him personally, a sign that the President has an opening to at some point move his image and JA rating net positive. On this measure 93% of Republicans and 56% of Independents approve of him. The President continues to have a considerable amount of personal good will not only with his base Republican voters, but also with those key Independent voters."

You will find more polling statistics and analysis at
http://www.tarrance.com/Republican-Analysis.pdf

BTW: I find it interesting that the most biased of the opinion pollsters, AP-AOL (ipsos-reid), actually shows the President's JA rating UP from last month from 32% to 36%--if re-weighted to compensate for the poll's 9 point oversampling of Democrats, the AP poll would put the President's JA rating in the 40s.

Additionally, AP-AOL discovered that a healthy majority (53%-58%) of the 'adults' they surveyed viewed the President as likeable, decisive and strong -- again, if re-weighted to compensate for the poll's oversampling of Democrats, the AP poll would put the President's ratings on these personal characteristics in the 60 percentile range!

http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/client/act_dsp_pdf.cfm?name=mr070122-2topline.pdf&id=3334

Tell me: has it been worth it?

I thought we should have gone to Baghdad in '91 but that's ancient history. We didn't. We spent the rest of the decade doing aerial patrols, exchanging fire on a regular basis, intermittently lobbing cruise missiles, and maintaining a crumbling sanctions regime.

Meanwhile, Saddam spent the decade getting half the Security Council on his payroll, maintaining (at a minimum) the intention and capability to get back in the WMD business asap, canoodling with assorted terrorists, and running people through shredders to liven up the slow nights.

Do you really think we'd be better off today if we had simply walked away and left Saddam as the rock star of the Arab world? I don't.

When this adventure started it was supposed to be a good 'ol nation building exercise, remember?

We oust the old guys and build Iraq into a model of democracy to inspire the whole region.

I don't think the possibility of "nation destroys itself in mindless sectarian violence" was really taken into account.

I recall many reasons for going to war. WMD was one (that he had chemical/biological and wanted/would use nuclear) We found some (old) chemical weapons, not stockpiles and the state of nuclear development was where we thought it was. Pieces were there, just on 'pause'.

Another was that Sadaam violated the original ceasefire in 91'. He agreed to things, and then reneged. He fired on our planes for a decade and continued to (at best) spread 'rumors' of his WMDs.

He routinely tortured people, stuffing people into wood chippers feet first, it was Udas' "right" to rape a bride on her wedding night, thousands were gassed in the north.

And yes, the long-term clandestine goal is to create a seed of democracy in the center of the middle east. Bordering Iran, bordering Syria, bordering Saudi Arabia, we're already doing in it in Afghanistan. The thing about long term goals is that they are long term. The 'spreading democracy' was never to be the 'ez quick term' part of the plan, but rather the only REAL end-game solution to the Whabbi rise and spread through the ME and much of Europe. IF you can't 'hang' or deal with it or have the patience to wait, then you were either never convinced in the first place or don't have the will or Constitution for big challenging things (ie the things worth fighting for -- ready my tagline)

This is your problem and not mine.

It sure doesn't look that way. The insurgency was on it's "last legs" in late 2003, if I recall. We have 150,000+ US/NATO troops to stabilize a nation of 25 million (FYI, Russia has largely crushed the Chechen rebels with 70,000 troops in a region of under 1 million - and they don't fight PC!)

We went in 2003 so you MUST be 'cherry-picking' a quote from somewhere and intentionally staying oblivious to the general talk coming commanders in the field and Bush (hell he got made fun of for saying it was "tough work" and going to be a long struggle during the '04 campaign)

Not sure how the ruskies doing anything is relevant since like you said they just go balls out and kick everyones ass, thus earning respect in the f'ed up terrorist psyche. Besides again you over-simply troop levels. 150k doing everything, versus 20k doing a single specific one task is very different. The 70k ruskie comment makes no sense.

Does it seem to you like the planners of this war really thought it through?

Yes it does. I think the one who didn't properly think through their support is (obviously) you.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.