I was looking at this
Washington Post report on the freshly released AP/IPSO poll and there is a very interesting wedge that I can not fully wrap my mind around.
Nearly four out of five Americans, including 70 percent of Republicans, believe civil war will break out in Iraq _ the bloody hot spot upon which Bush has staked his presidency.
Okay, I find this number fairly believable on a gut level although I am surprised at how non-partisan the breakdown is with no more than a 10 point divergence from the national mean and the Republican sub sample. That same logic applies on the divergence from the national mean and the Dem. and Non-Affiliated subsamples(10-15 points at the most).
His approval ratings for dealing with the economy and Iraq held steady, but still hovered around 40 percent.
Let's get the actual numbers from IPSO (big PDF). The "Handling the situation in Iraq" is part of question 3 on Page 7 and that number is 39%, the Iraq civil war breaking out question is #2 in the second round of questions on page 9, and that number is 77%.
So there is roughly 23% of the population that does not believe a civil war is likely to break out in Iraq. I can easily understand why these people are willing to give Bush a good approval rating in Iraq. Now the confusing this is that there is another 16% of the poll's respondants who hold these two thoughts at the same time:
1. There is a reasonable likelihood that civil war will break out in Iraq.
2. George Bush and his adminstration are doing a good job in Iraq.
I am confused.