As quirky poll questions go, this is actually kind of interesting.
What would Americans say to President Bush if they could talk to him about the situation in Iraq for 15 minutes?
The majority of Americans — if they could literally file through the Oval Office and talk to the man they elected to be the top executive and commander in chief of the country — would tell President Bush to focus on developing an exit strategy from Iraq and removing U.S. troops from that country. A smaller group of one in four would tell the president to stay the course or even to be more aggressive in Iraq. Six percent would tell the president to own up to his mistakes in Iraq and apologize. About 7% would advise the president to work with study groups or the United Nations to figure out a solution to the Iraq dilemma. Only 5% would have nothing to say to Bush about what Americans’ currently rank as the nation’s most important problem.
It was an entirely open-ended question. Poll respondents were asked, “If you could talk with President Bush for fifteen minutes about the situation in Iraq, what would you, personally, advise him to do?” There were no choices to pick from.
A strong majority would talk to Bush about getting U.S. troops out. The most common response was telling the president end the war (39%); the second most common response was urging to craft and execute an exit strategy (12%). Nearly all of the other possible responses were in single digits.
The results were especially one-sided if you consider partisanship. Dems and independents responded to the question in largely the same way, while Republicans were more divided — the top GOP response was “continue with your actions” (24%), followed by “pull the troops out” (21%), and “finish what you started” (17%).
The real fun, though, is reading over the literal responses to the question.
Dan Froomkin apparently convinced Gallup to share examples of the actual wording respondents used. Some of these are pretty amusing.
* “Leave Iraq. Get his head out of the sand. I would tell him that his expectations are unrealistic and that his friends are making too much money on the war and that there are people dying. Also, if it’s such a good idea, he should be sending his daughters.”
* “Continue doing the job he is doing and not worry about the press.”
* “I would tell him I appreciated him being the president, but I would like him to bring those people in Iraq home, because there has been enough suffering.”
* “It’s not a disgrace to admit you made a mistake. Stand up tall and be a man and say, ‘Hey, I blew it.’ Bring the troops home because you are just making it worse.”
* “I would say what is wrong with your crazy [swear word], what the hell are you doing, we went over there to get oil and straighten these people out, and we are paying out of the nose for gasoline now.”
* “Quit giving out so damn much information.”
* “Admit up front that what we set out to do is going to take up to 40 years to do.”
* “Stay the course and finish it.”
* “Get out. Let them fight for themselves.”
* “Get out of Iraq and start thinking about the American people and not about himself.”
* “Hold his ground and do what he knows is best.”
* “Get out.”
* “Shut his mouth and get out.”
* “Enlist.”
I particularly liked that last one.
Care to share what you might tell the president if given 15 minutes to chat about Iraq policy?