Support for the war falls below, well, everything

December 12, 2006

One of Josh Marshall’s readers raises a really good point.

Just to put things in perspective… with public approval solidly in the 20s, the war in Iraq is now less popular than a bevy of social issues that have long been considered political poison for Democrats. Imagine if a Democratic president and Congress had made any of these issues their #1 priority, as Bush has with Iraq.

And they wonder why they lost the election?

I wish I had thought of that. Three new national polls out today — CBS News, WaPo/ABC, and USAT/Gallup — all show support for the war completely bottoming out. Americans turned on the war quite a while ago, but now we’re looking at numbers in which a genuine national consensus emerges — 75% of Americans disapprove of Bush’s handling of the war; 62% believe it was not worth the costs, and a combined 61% believe we either cannot or will not win the war.

And as Josh’s reader noted, the result is a political dynamic in which the war in Iraq is “less popular than gay marriage, legalizing pot, banning handguns, and rescinding the death penalty.”

So, the next time you hear James Dobson saying, “The vast majority of Americans oppose gay marriage,” remember, gay marriage has stronger national support than the war in Iraq.

DAMN YOU, DEMOCRATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • I can never get that legalizing pot problem. In a country where alcohol and nicatine addictions are legal…

    Sad, stupid war created for us by ignorant arrogant men who claimed to be neither.

  • Lance, one can’t wage a war on something, use propaganda to get the message out, then decide the war wasn’t such a good idea.

    It would make one look weak and stupid, so they keep up the good fight to save face and pretend things are going swimmingly.

  • I can never get that legalizing pot problem. In a country where alcohol and nicatine addictions are legal…

    Follow the money. Not only are tobacco and the assorted alcohol purveyors against legalizing marijuana, but you also have cotton and polyester companies against it’s non-medicinal (or recreational, whatever your preference) applications. Throw in Big Oil and its aversion to the biomass implications for energy creations and you’ll see why something that literally helped to found this great country remains illegal.

  • Last month, 70% of Republicans approved of how the President was handling the war; now, just 47% do. (32% of the Republicans who approved one month ago now disapprove)

    Last month, 60% of Conservatives approved of how the President was handling the war; now, just 34% do. (43% of the Conservatives who approved one month ago now disapprove)

    http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/CBSNews_polls/dec06iraq.pdf

    Why would one month make such a huge difference? What has happened besides the election? Was it the dismissal of Rummy the idiot?

    It looks like a huge number of Republican/Conservative voters simply do not think for themselves, they just take their cues from the crowd. They saw the election results, and they changed their opinions accordingly.

    ——————-

    BTW, the war on drugs rages on because the casualties in the war on drugs are doled out the same way as with all the other wars. To other people’s kids, mostly poor ones.

    Rich kids get busted for drugs all the time. But if they had to serve the time that the average drug offender serves, the war would be over in no time.

  • The interesting thing about legalizing marijuana is that it depends on how the question is framed. Studies have shown that accross the US, red state, blue state, if you ask people is they approve of medical marijuana, between 60-70% will answer yes. If you ask about full legalization, the numbers go down to below 50%. Most people would support an innitiative to make prosecution of marijuana related crimes law enforcement’s lowest priority, but as you noticed in Nevada twice now, full legalization will not fly.

  • Hopefully at some point we’ll have a rational leader who sees that the drug war disproportionately criminalizes poor people (racerx#6) and turns the drug war into a management issue just like alcohol and cigarettes and then we don’t have to legislate the issue by popularity polls

    Like Gracious #8 points out, Medical Marijuana legalization is a no-brainer, except among those with no brains.

  • Like Gracious #8 points out, Medical Marijuana legalization is a no-brainer, except among those with no brains.

    At the state level. As long as the Rethugs are in power in DC, however, we’ll have the attorney general suing the states that pass such laws. IIRC, Oregon knows exactly how that feels.

  • “One, two, three, what are we fighting four”.

    Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn,
    Next stop is old Iran!

    Oy vey. In terms of the poll results, I wonder if the Right Wanks are starting to feel a bit lonely, or surrounded. After all, the only people against the war are un-patriotic, tree hugging, family destroying, terrorist coddling, soldier hating anti-Americans. (Mother stabbers, father rapers!) So if these polls are any guide this country is overflowing with all of the above. What is a good pro-American to do? Crawl under a rock and die one hopes.

    re: Legalized pot. I don’t know if this has changed, but waaaaay back when I was in college I learned that states that don’t have much in the way of traditional scapegoats (non-whites) tend to have laxer drug laws. The reason: Reality creeps in when they draw up the laws and people realized it will be their own children locked up for life.

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