Right Wing Nut House

The latest poll from CNN-Gallup confirms what many on the right have been saying for months; that the best salesman for the government’s Iraq War policies is the President himself:

As President Bush prepares to make his final speech on the strategy for winning the war in Iraq, a recent poll indicates that fewer people are opposed to the U.S. presence there, but they don’t think the U.S. is winning the effort.

Forty-eight percent of those polled said they thought it was a mistake to send U.S. troops to Iraq, as opposed to 54 percent of those polled last month. Fifty percent said it was not a mistake, compared to 45 percent last month.

Despite an apparent surge in approval for sending troops to Iraq, those polled said they don’t believe that the U.S. is winning the war. Of those polled, 49 percent said neither side is winning the war, 13 percent said the insurgents are winning and 36 percent said the United States is winning

Clearly, the renewed effort by the President in the last month to fight the public relations battle for his Iraq policies is paying dividends. This despite a curious attempt by most media outlets to bury the President’s speeches or worse, cherry pick quotes to highlight the negatives. There was the flap over the President’s admission that mistakes had been made in the reconstruction efforts, especially underestimating the strength of the insurgency. The latest tidbit the press has latched onto has to do with the President’s comment following his speech on Monday that “30,000 Iraqis” had died since the war began. Not surprisingly, the press jumped on that number and automatically assumed the President was talking about civilian deaths. Not so. Here’s the question and answer (via Mudville Gazzette):

Q: Since the inception of the Iraqi war, I’d like to know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed. And by Iraqis I include civilians, military, police, insurgents, translators.

THE PRESIDENT: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We’ve lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq.

Several media outlets ran with a story headlining 30,000 Iraqi civilian deaths, which of course, is not what the President said. Be that as it may, other aspects of the poll were also interesting:

Thirty-eight percent said some troops should be brought home, while 25 percent said troop numbers should remain static. Twenty-six percent said all troops should be withdrawn.

Many of those polled said they believe the U.S. has the ability to win the war, but won’t.

Asked if they thought the U.S. will win the war in Iraq, 46 percent said yes, as opposed to 65 percent who said the U.S. can win.

The 46 percent is made up of 25 percent of those polled who said the U.S. will definitely win the war and 21 percent who said the U.S. probably will win. Forty-nine percent said it would not win.

American ambivalence about our ability to win the war is a direct reflection of the “one dimensional” reporting on the conflict that some in the MSM are finally starting to address. The surest sign of this is a flood of stories over the last 72 hours about the new poll of Iraqis that show a surprising 75% believing that there lives are going well with another 68% believing that things will get better in the next year. The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, and others who in the past have been predisposed toward negativity have actually allowed a ray of hope to seep into their coverage. And the reason for this has to be the attitude of the Iraqis themselves toward the upcoming vote. With many insurgent groups giving grudging promises not to interfere with the vote tomorrow as well as the Sunnis apparently willing to throw themselves with some measure of enthusiasm into the electoral process, these media outlets could hardly do anything else.

Ed Morrissey also notices the slight shift in the tone of coverage and wonders if we’ve “turned the corner” on media attitudes toward Iraq:

When the Gray Lady sees fit to start reporting that even the Sunni of Saddam’s hometown have committed themselves to democracy in the upcoming elections, it might indicate that defeatism has finally jumped the shark…

[;;]

The Sunni participation puts the last of the building blocks in place for the establishment of a consensus democratic republic. The reporting of the Times indicates that the American media might finally start recognizing what will shortly become obvious to all whether they do so or not: that a free Iraq exists, thanks to an administration that steadfastly refused to listen to the Chicken Littles of the opposition and the whiners of the Exempt Media at home. The war may finally have turned the corner in the only place it could be lost — here in America.

Not to put a brake on Mr. Morrissey’s optimism but here’s a survey that appears in today’s New York Times compiled by the government that is a little more sobering in its implications:

DESPITE President Bush’s articulation of a new strategy for victory in Iraq, the American debate remains polarized. An increasing number of critics argue that the war is already lost and that we may as well withdraw, while others claim we are clearly headed to victory, and Americans would know that if only the press would stop emphasizing the negative.

The State of Iraq: An Update Our judgment, based on data compiled by the American government, the news media and independent monitors, is that trends in Iraq do not support either of these extreme views. Things are in a state of continual turmoil, with many hopeful signs but also some deeply disquieting realities. In the good news category, one could place the real, if belated, progress in training Iraqi security forces, the greater availability of telephone and television services, renewed economic growth and more children in school (reading much better textbooks).

On the negative side, electricity and oil production remain below the levels of the Baathist regime, even as Iraqi expectations for improvement soar. Among Sunni Arabs, who stand to greatly increase their representation in Parliament after tomorrow’s elections, passive support for the terrorists is all too common. And the insurgency remains as strong and deadly as ever.

One thing that jumps out of the chart that accompanies the Op-Ed is that fully 80% of the Iraqi people expressed the desire to see the Americans leave “in the near term.” This is consistent with other polls that show the Iraqis want the Americans to leave as soon as possible. What the poll doesn’t do is ask the obvious follow-up question; under what conditions should the Americans leave? Here’s what the ABC News poll found:

Specifically, 26 percent of Iraqis say U.S. and other coalition forces should “leave now” and another 19 percent say they should go after the government chosen in this week’s election takes office; that adds to 45 percent. Roughly the other half says coalition forces should remain until security is restored (31 percent), until Iraqi security forces can operate independently (16 percent), or longer (5 percent).

It appears that the Iraqis are as ambivalent about the presence of American troops in their country as Americans are.

And it just goes to show you that there are polls…and then there are polls.