(Cont. from Part 1) So it would be a fair summary to say that 97% of the public are aware of the issue, and 75% have some significant reservations about how the war is going. We could also conjecture that of the 46% who answered "very well, not too well or not at all well," most felt well-informed enough to have a definite opinion. The 51% who said "fairly well" probably includes respondents who didn't feel well enough informed to have a strong opinion about how it's going as well as some who felt that patriotic sentiment required leaning toward a more optimistic view.
For a wartime Administration with soldiers dying daily in a war started under the most dubious of circumstances, those are not cheerful numbers. Probably even more telling is that in the results for April 10-16, 2-3 weeks before Bush pranced around in a flight suit in his "Mission Accomplished" performance, 61% thought things were going "very well" Every war is popular during the first few weeks. That percentage in the latest poll was 22%, little more than a third of the "Mission Accomplished" level. That drastic shift in perception has to affect the credibility of the President and of the war.
The following question, which only shows results from the most recent poll, was, "From what you've seen and read, has stabilizing Iraq been HARDER than President Bush and his advisers expected, EASIER than they expected, or about as they expected?" This question would get more at respondents' views on the Administration's specific judgment in the policies they actually pursued. With 4% don't know/refused, 64% said "harder than expected", 30% "about as expected" (probably inlcudes some without a strong opinion or looking to express patriotic optimism), and only 2% - that's two percent - saying "easier than expected."
With 96% of the public aware enough of the issue to express some opinion on the question, nearly 2/3 believe the Administration's judgment was overly optimistic. It wouldn't be reading too much into this to say this represents a significant amount of disillusionment over the Iraq War.
The poll's actual results are considerably more complicated than saying that 65% "thought going to war was the right decision," a question that was not even asked in that form.
2 comments:
Excellent analysis!
The wording of the question makes a great deal of difference, but even more important is the way the media translates the results. It sounds like the public is beginning to see through the fog, but the SCLM (so-called liberal media - an Eric Alterman term) is putting the rosiest face possible on the results.
And foreign policy polls are really bad. The Pew Center writeup said that 65% *feel* that "war was the right decision" which the LA Times morphed into 65% *thought* that. Thr ironic part is, when you dig into this one, there was actually some good information on people's opinions on the war. But I don't understand why Pew didn't ask a more specific question like, "Do you approve of Bush's decision to invade and occupy Iraq the way he did in March 2003?" - Bruce
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