The latest IPSOS-AP poll is out and it’s official: an overwhelming majority of Americans support the Constitution.

The American Constitution, that is.

This earth shattering news is based on the fact that 1001 people responded to one of the silliest questions ever asked by a major polling organization:

An overwhelming number of people say critics of the Iraq war should be free to voice their objections – a rare example of widespread agreement about a conflict that has divided the nation along partisan lines.

Well, duh.

Nearly three weeks after a grieving California mother named Cindy Sheehan started her anti-war protest near President Bush’s Texas ranch, nine of 10 people surveyed in an AP-Ipsos poll say it’s OK for war opponents to publicly share their concerns about the conflict.

I think if some pasty-faced pollster had asked me that question I would have looked at him as if he was from the planet Mongol and spit in his eye for insulting my intelligence. Why would such a question be of earth shattering importance? Better they ask if 1001 Americans like ice cream or enjoy sex.

Of course, the purpose of the question was to tie that 90% figure into the Cindy Sheehan-George Bush “Stand-Off” in Crawford. By implication, the AP is making it seem as if people are endorsing Sheehan’s quixotic, Quixote-like quest to bitch slap the President over the Iraq war – a moment she devoutly hoped would have been a catalyst for the anti-war movement.

Instead, the President won’t see her. Now that’s a question I would love to know the answer to: “Should President Bush meet with Cindy Sheehan despite the fact that he met with her once already and where she expressed her thanks to the President for “really caring?”

Somehow, I don’t think we’ll be seeing a question like that asked by any national polling outfit anytime soon.

Other poll results showed the President’s approval in handling the Iraq War right where it should be: around 37%. I know I would have given my disapproval for the way the civilians have handled the war recently. While our military is doing its usual spectacular job, the President and the brass in the Pentagon seem wedded to policies that are confusing, contradictory, and unrealistic.

One result of the poll that surprised me was that only 53% of the people think the war was a mistake. After the most relentless and aggressively anti-war media campaign in American history 47% of the American people still think invading Iraq was the right move. The poll also showed a solid 60% favor staying in Iraq till the job is done. The Gallup number is much higher – 67% – which could reflect an oddity in the way the polling was conducted.

There was the inevitable (and tiresome) comparison to Viet Nam:

More than half of those polled, 53 percent, say the United States made a mistake in going to war in Iraq. That level of opposition is about the same as the number who said that about Vietnam in August 1968, six months after the Tet offensive – the massive North Vietnamese attack on South Vietnamese cities that helped turn U.S. opinion against that war. Various polls have shown that erosion of war support has been faster in Iraq than during the Vietnam War in the 1960s.

Please note the totally unrelated mention of August 1968. What in God’s name does that have to do with a poll taken in August 2005? The 1968 poll was taken “six months after the Tet Offensive.” The 2005 poll was taken six months after…February. Now I hate the month of February as much as the next man but to compare Tet with February is just a little kooky.

And then there’s the helpful information (wishful?) that the erosion of war support (in what way?) has been faster in Iraq than Viet Nam.

Perhaps it would have been more helpful to know what analysis those numbers were based on. Seems to be a pretty broad statement to make with no proof to back it up. Perhaps some enterprising blogger would like to look into that statement because I seem to recall polls taken last November that while showing greater approval of the President’s handling of Iraq also show about the same percentage of people believing the war was a mistake and that we should leave immediately.

I have no doubt that Americans are getting tired of the war. They’re tired of the constant bombardment of bad news from the press and the carping and caterwauling of the left over the war. I am too. But if the Iraqis can ever get their act together and come up with a constitution agreeable to most of the country, I’m pretty confident that some of those numbers will inch upward.

And if the President could get out front on the war and show a little leadership, his numbers will probably take a turn for the better too.