No, I'm not referring to Bush's new poll low, although I could be. I'm referring to this article, in which Newt Gingrich criticizes the NSA spying program.
How bad does an administration have to get before Newt Gingrich looks reasonable to me? Oh, but I forgot, the reason this president is so bad is because he's too liberal.
Friday, May 12, 2006
A new low
Posted by Bell Curve at 12:31 PM
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5 comments:
I can't believe NRO would mistake a fascist for a liberal. Shows how little they know about either.
I don't think I am "spittle-flecked" either. You guys, maybe. But not me. ;-)
// posted by USwest
While Iraq has not killed as many Americans as Vietnam did, it hasn't been going on as long. Also, Iraq is even more unpopular in opinion polls than Vietnam was. Also, despite Republican revisionist histories, opinion on the Vietnam war was NOT divided so starkly on partisan lines. See A Divider Not a Uniter , a recently published book by Political Scientist, Gary Jacobson for details. The book is very thoroughly researched and examines the unprecedented levels of polarization we've seen in the Bush presidency.
I don't think anyone would read the National Review for objective assessment of what a "Liberal" is.
// posted by Raised By Republicans
I am struck that only 28% of those surveyed placed Iraq up in the top 2 issues most important to the country. I'd expect more people to be placing Iraq near the top of the list. Just for giggles, I went digging into Gallup polls to put the 28% number into perspective. I discovered that 28% is pretty high. In 1965, Vietnam was listed as the most important issue facing the nation by 33% of those surveyed. By 1971, only 15% placed Vietnam at the top. By far, the economy was the main area of concern with 41% putting it first.
American are feeling the brunt of the War in Iraq. Gallup surveys from March of 2006 reported that when asked if the war had a positive or negative effect on people personally, 39% said it had had a negative effect, up from 16% in March 2003. 45% had no opinion and 14% said the effect had been positive.
Since RBR mentioned Vietnam, I went digging in Gallup's archives for some data on public option on Vietnam. I wanted to compare it to similar data for a similar time frame on Iraq. I wasn't able to find exact comparisons, so I did the best I could. I took Operation Rolling Thunder (ORT), the sustained air raids over Vietnam started in Feb-March of 1965 as a starting point because that is as far back as I could find data.
Immediately following ORT, 24% of those surveyed said that we did had made a mistake by going into Vietnam. By March 1968, 49% said we had made a mistake.
LBJs job approval rating in may of 1964 (couldn't find data for March 1965) was 75%. by March of 1968 it had fallen to 32%.
Now Iraq. At the start of the War in March of 2003, 76% of those polled approved to the decision to go to war. 23% thought it was a mistake. By Feb 2006, 56% of Americans thought it was a mistake. (See here for source).
At the start of the war, Bush's approval rating was 58%. Today it is 32%.
So based on the two cases, you can see that the longer wars drag out, the less support there is for them, and the less interest in them. RBR is right, this war is even more unpopular than the Vietnam War, yet the level of outrage doesn't seem to be as high.
I posted that at 1 am. So my thinking as foggy. I'd add that in addition to the unpopularity of the war, the President also becomes unpopular, of course.
What was interesting in clicking through the archives was that Gallup was polling on many of the same issues that it does today, the economy, immigration (in the 1970's it was civil rights and discrimination), views on the war, the level of corruption in government, etc. It was interesting. Not much has changed. Either that, or we are coming full circle.
// posted by USWest
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