The New York Times, believe it or not, has this story in its campaign blog:
Poll: American Support for War Inches Up #
The story cites an NYT/CBS Poll that showed America support for war in Iraq rose to 41% in July from 35% in May. You will not see this story on the CBS Evening News or on the front page of America’s most un-American paper, though. The results do not fit either organization’s political agenda.
You can see the result here, on a friggin' PDF buried deep in the bowels of the NYT web archives.
The blog entry rightly gives credit to President Bush’s persistence in requesting patience and tenacity in our fight on terrorism.
The blog piece, even its title, would make you think the up-tick in support for Bush’s policy was microscopic. Six percentage points in two months is a major move, folks. That’s a 17 percent change in support. Had the numbers been reversed, with support falling from 41 percent to 35 percent, what would the headline be? Try “Americans Abandon War Effort.”
My Take: American like offense. For two years, the administration had our forces hunkered down in ditches. With the surge, we’re back on the offensive, killing the dirty rotten bastards by the bushel. Americans love it. If we wipe out a couple hundred terrorists in the next few weeks, support for the war will be back above 50 percent.
Bush should have this Patton quote soldered to eyeball: “When in doubt, attack!”
And after the attack, check out the Beltway Traffic Jam
Q and O poses the question: “Anyone want to take a wag at why there’s a 10 point drop in the latter category since May?” referring to opposition dropping from 61 percent in May to 51 percent in July. As I stated above, the reason is the surge and the offensive. People like winners, attackers, champions, fighters.