Public Opinion Strategies: 56% of Americans believe...

this is sooooooooo stupid. what does this even mean to support the president? really. what does that mean, does it mean you will not post on the internet to say what's going wrong. what are we evil non supporters doing to undermine the efforts of W? who cares, bush is going to do what he wants, and hopefully the person who succeeds him will clean up this mess.

 

If you think staying in Vietnam would have turned around the outcome, then I don't know what to say. It wasn't going to happen. It wasn't the fact that the anti-war wanted out that made us leave. It was the the fact that the anti-war crowd realized we were doing more harm than good by staying, and the govt. realized that as well.

In Iraq we are doing more harm than good by staying, and that is again why the public wants us to leave. Add to that the fact that they don't trust our troops in the hands of the current commander -n- chief.

Please note that more than half the troops in the field there believe we should have never gone into Iraq in the first place.

It isn't just the anti-war left that believes this. Most of the country and military is in agreement on this. Throwing more lives down the drain when it isn't producing results is the reason why people want the war to stop.

 

this coming from the poster who starts multiple threads showing polls (including this very one). have you no sense of irony?

yes or no?

do the 50% of troops who do not think we can win in iraq support the enemy?

yes or no?

 

You didn't start posting here on Iraq before late September of 2003, when things were going south and you went into denial mode and were whining about how important it was that schools were being painted and we were missing the big picture by focusing on the insurgency (a short term problem, you assured us by posting editorials from the new york post) when the real picture was the bright future of Iraq. Funny stuff. Or when you endorsed the "last throes " of the insurgency that Dick Chaney promised us two years ago or predicted its downfall any number of times.

So, we miss the time when you were partying it up at mission accomplished, and a lot of the time when you rode the neocons nuts for years before Sept of 2003, the same people who brought us "cakewalk", "greet us as liberators"'finance its own reconstruction" and "weeks not months" and accused anybody who disagreed witht them of being a fellow traveler traitor terrorist lover. But I don't bet that it's any different from the form of cheerleading/mudslinging that you currently engage in.

I don't know, I asked this question way back in the beginning. Apparently it has somethign to do with internet posting.

 

basso.....PWND!!!!!!!!!

 

They don't exist - because you didn't make any posts in this forum before Sept 03. If so then find one. I can't find any, yet I can find many by others from prior to that date.

Either you don't have a single one, or you have posted SO MUCH CRAP on Iraq that the ones prior to september 2003 are not retrievable.

You don't pop up in any of the triumphant "mission accomplished" threads (since you start a thread to gloat everytime the wind shifts this is unusual) or any of the longer pre-war threads from early 03 or 02.

I'm pretty sure you didn't start posting in this forum until September 2003 because I tried several variations. But i don't doubt that you were a good little party man back before then too.

Anyway, you happily and wholeheartedly told us in 2005 that the insurgency was in its last throes and Cheney was "prescient" for saying that it was.

Congrats on picking that winning horse, it's a PRESCIENT reminder of why your analysis now is meaningless partisan junk.

 

Sure, enjoy:

 

I think you guys are talking about two different things. Rather Sam made a list of claims, and you have been focused in on one thing.

 

Yes you were, and Sam conceded that you didn't predict the war was going to be easy on the board because you didn't post on the board until 2003. He then went on to say that you at least believed Cheney to be prescient in his remarks about the insurgency to be in its death throes.

The reply to that was when you asked him to prove it.(You were probably still talking about easy predictions prior to the war) but Sam had moved on in his list of things that you were wrong about.

 

forget what basso said - how about what the people who actually started the war said? aside from cheney's "last throw" or "we will be greeted as liberators" comments or the silly "mission accompished" banner what about rummys comments?

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/08/03/rumsfeld-iraq-rosy/

Feb. 7, 2003: “It is unknowable how long that conflict [the war in Iraq] will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.”

Feb. 20 2003: “‘Do you expect the invasion, if it comes, to be welcomed by the majority of the civilian population of Iraq?’ Jim Lehrer asked the defense secretary on PBS’ The News Hour. ‘There is no question but that they would be welcomed,’ Rumsfeld replied, referring to American forces.”

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/1/12/85454.shtml
Three years ago in The Washington Post, Ken Adelman, formerly an assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, promised us "Cakewalk In Iraq." I wonder how Adelman feels about his promise today.

In his article, Adelman disparaged Brookings Institution military analysts and the redoubtable Edward Luttwak for "fear-mongering." Adelman dismissed concerns about U.S. casualties and unilateral action as misguided worries that inspire inaction, when it was perfectly clear, to Adleman at least, that Iraq's Saddam "Hussein constitutes the number one threat against American security and civilization."

Cheney, 3/2003.
"I think it'll go relatively quickly, …Weeks rather than months."

face it basso - you and bush have been flat out wrong on virtually everything regarding iraq and the majority of the american people oppose what you and bush stand for.

but you are a perfect example of this dubya slip-up...

Bush, 5/2005.
"You got to keep repeating things over and over and over ... to kind of catapult the propaganda."

 

Wonder why basso didn't tell us the poll was published in the New York Post?

hum....


Conservatives are aggressively pushing a new poll by a GOP firm which allegedly shows that there's more support for the Iraq war than anybody thinks.

So we asked another Republican pollster to look at the poll's numbers, and get this: He tells us that the poll is bogus.


GOP Pollster Says Poll Showing War Support Is Bogus

Conservatives are out there in full force trumpeting a poll that appeared on the front page of today's New York Post allegedly showing that there's much more support for the Iraq war than anybody thought.

The poll -- which was done by the big GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies and ran under the glaring headline "America Says Lets Win War" -- iss being promoted heavily by wingnut talk show hosts, bloggers and others. They are aggressively using it to pump up GOP morale and to undermine Dems' resolve in advance of a showdown between Congress and the White House. Rush Limbaugh said that it's going to "shock the Democrats," while PowerlineBlog's Paul Mirengoff sagely observed that it shows that "the Democrats' defeatist approach to Iraq may not be a winning political strategy." Some liberal bloggers have already started to debunk the poll -- don't miss Steve Benen's skillful skewering of the survey right here.

But guess what: I've just gotten off the phone with a Republican pollster who says he originally supported the war -- let me repeat that, a Republican pollster who says he supported the war. His take? He basically says the poll's a crock. The pollster, David Johnson, the CEO of the respected Strategic Vision firm, tells me that many of the questions were leading and designed to elicit the answers they got. "This poll is not the quality we've come to expect from national polling firms," Johnson tells me.

First, let's look at what the poll "found."

Now let's look at the actual questions. They're here.

The first finding -- that 57 % support "finishing the job" -- is based on asking respondents whether they agree or disagree with the following statement: “I support finishing the job in Iraq, that is, keeping the troops there until the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security for its people.” What does Johnson, the pollster I spoke to, think about this question?

"It's designed to elicit a positive response by putting respondents in the position of saying that they don't support `finishing a job," Johnson says. "It's not a straightforward wording at all. It's also put in the first person to personalize it. In polling when you use the first person you generally get a more positive response."

The second finding -- that Americans think victory is "possible" by 53%-43% -- is based on asking whether respondents agree or disagree with this: "Victory in Iraq, that is creating a young but stable democracy in Iraq and reducing the threat of terrorism at home, is no longer possible for the U.S." Pretty tricky, eh? Note that this question is framed as a negative -- forcing people to disagree with a negative. And it asks whether people think it's "no longer possible" to reduce the threat of terrorism at home -- something that's clearly worded that way because fewer would agree with it.

"This wording is completely unprofessional," Johnson says. "It's designed to confuse the respondent. People are being asked whether two different things can be accomplished -- establishing democracy in Iraq and reducing the threat of terrorism at home -- and doesn't clarify which one people are talking about."

Finally, let's look at the finding that only 25% agree with the statement, "I don't really care what happens in Iraq after the U.S. leaves, I just want the troops brought home."

"That's a leading question," Johnson says. "It's forcing people who want the troops brought home to say they disagree, because it's forcing them to say they don't care what happens if they're pulled out. "Most Americans don't want the troops there but they're also concerned about what will happen if they're pulled out." Asked if he was merely badmouthing a competitor, Johnson said that they were "not often" in competition because his firm does state polls while Public Opinion Strategies focuses on national ones.

So what's the response of the author of this poll to all this? I called Public Opinion Strategies' partner and co-founder Neil Newhouse, and he got back to me. While declining to get into specifics, he said: "He's entitled to his opinion. So he's got a problem with the way the questions are worded? At least we laid them all out there for everyone to see. This shows a much more nuanced view of how voters are looking at the war. This is a significantly different way to look at attitudes."


http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/02/gop_pollster_sa.php

 

usually, when your elected leaders tell you something you want to believe them. way to rundown most of the american people by calling them idiots for believing their elected leaders though. (for the record, i never believed those liars)

second, you dont care that our elected leaders and the people who started this war lied to all of us (you included).

who is the idiot again?

yes or no?

do the 50% of troops who do not think we can win in iraq support the enemy?

yes or no?

 

Good find mc mark, I told you all it was a POS poll.

 

It must warm basso's heart to be included in the august company of "others"!