{"id":7671,"date":"2006-06-13T10:49:52","date_gmt":"2006-06-13T14:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7671"},"modified":"2006-06-13T10:49:52","modified_gmt":"2006-06-13T14:49:52","slug":"a-post-zarqawi-bounce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/a-post-zarqawi-bounce\/","title":{"rendered":"A post-Zarqawi bounce?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few days ago, a top Republican campaign aide told Newsweek<\/a> that the party expected Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s death to pay some political dividends. “When you kill some bastard terrorist with a long Arab name — they get that right away,” the aide said. “So, yeah, this is the kind of thing … [tag]voters[\/tag] respond to.”<\/p>\n

So, was the aide right? Did voters respond to the killing of a “bastard terrorist with a long Arab name”? It depends on whom you ask. For example, a new [tag]CBS[\/tag] News poll<\/a> shows no bounce at all. In fact, just the opposite.<\/p>\n

Half [of the public] thinks the level of violence in Iraq will be unchanged by [tag]Zarqawi[\/tag]’s death, while 30 percent say it will actually lead to more attacks against U.S. forces…. Fifty-five percent of Americans still say the war in Iraq is going badly for the United States, while an overwhelming majority, 82 percent, describe the situation in Iraq as a civil war between Iraqis. […]<\/p>\n

Zarqawi’s killing hasn’t helped President Bush with the public, either. His overall job approval rating remains just 33 percent — down slightly from 35 percent last month — while 60 percent disapprove.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, it’s across-the-board dissatisfaction from the public, right? Yes, until you look at the [tag]USA Today[\/tag]\/[tag]Gallup[\/tag] results<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The new [tag]poll[\/tag] found that 48% believe the United States probably or definitely will win the war, up from 39% in April. It also found that 47% believe things are going well in Iraq, up from 38% in March.<\/p>\n

The survey, taken Friday to Sunday and released Monday, also showed Bush’s approval rating going up to 38% from 36% earlier this month and an all-time low of 31% in May.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The USAT\/Gallup poll was conducted from Friday to Sunday, while the CBS poll was done from Saturday to Sunday. The USAT\/Gallup poll had a slightly larger sample and lower margin of error. Which one’s right? Your guess is as good as mine.<\/p>\n

Regardless, Ted Galen Carpenter, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, said, “Unless there is clear, sustainable progress in Iraq, these numbers will be just a brief blip.” That sounds right to me. A minor poll bump or not, the U.S. is facing a crisis for which there is no good solution.<\/p>\n

And what about today’s story on [tag]Rove[\/tag]? Well, it’s hard to imagine “top-aide-was-investigated-but-not-indicted” headlines giving the White House much of a [tag]bounce[\/tag].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few days ago, a top Republican campaign aide told Newsweek that the party expected Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s death to pay some political dividends. “When you kill some bastard terrorist with a long Arab name — they get that right away,” the aide said. “So, yeah, this is the kind of thing … [tag]voters[\/tag] respond […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7671\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}