WaPo's new poll demonstrates that Americans no longer believe the Bush Administration when it discusses Iraq:
A majority of Americans reject claims by the Bush administration that the insurgency in Iraq is weakening and are divided on whether victory over the insurgents will have a major impact on terrorism elsewhere in the world, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
. . . Barely one in five Americans -- 22 percent -- say they believe that the insurgency is getting weaker while 24 percent believe it is strengthening. More than half -- 53 percent -- say resistance to U.S. and Iraqi government forces has not changed.
The Post-ABC poll also found that few Americans agree with Vice President Cheney that the insurgency is in its "last throes." That claim, which Cheney made recently in an interview with Larry King on CNN, has been repeatedly challenged by critics of the administration's Iraq policy and defended by Bush officials.
. . . As with virtually every facet of the Iraq issue, deep partisan divisions were reflected in views of the current state of the insurgency. More than a third of all Republicans -- 35 percent -- said the insurgents were growing weaker in Iraq, compared to 13 percent of all Democrats and 19 percent of all political independents.
I beg to differ with WaPo that this is a partisan divide. Independents and Democrats know that the Bush Adminstration has been mendacious from the beginning on Iraq.
And when 65% of Republicans no longer believe a Republican Administration, that is not a sign of a partisan divide - that is a sign of an amazing consensus.
Let's turn the numbers around so they make sense - 65% of Republicans, 81% of Independents and 87% of Democrats do not believe the insurgency in Iraq is weakening.
Only in the strange world of the Media does such a result represent a "partisan divide."
