I have to say I’m a little suspicious about a poll from an organization with the acronym POS, but digging deeper I notice a couple of disturbing features in these data.

49 % of the respondents support immediate withdrawal or a fixed timetable irrespective of stability in Iraq.

At the same time,

only 25% agreed with the statement “I don’t care what happens in Iraq after the US leaves, I just want the troops brought home”.

So these 25% are merely moral cretins who don’t even want to think about the thousands of Iraqis who put their necks on the line (literally) to help our mission succeed.

The people who worry me are the 24 % who say they DO care but want to pull the plug anyway. I don’t know where to begin looking for the place in myself where I could condemn to death someone who risked their lives to help my country, and have the moral vanity to feel sorry for them AT THE SAME TIME. These 24% are not just loathsome. They are seriously jacked up as well.

The other weird data point is the 66 % of the respondents who didn’t think that the US would lose its superpower status (question 14). This tells me that many (most?) of the 49% who support withdrawal are part of the 66%, and are telling themselves “it’s OK to lose; we’re still Number One”. Let’s assume that we could make a compelling case for this to be false, i.e., if the US surrendered in Iraq we would become an ordinary power, like France. Would this change any of the pro-withdrawal votes? I see an opportunity for Bush here!

The foregoing assumes that the 31% who DO think we’d lose our superpower status think that would be a bad thing. Some of the 31% who agree with question 14 could be liberals who want us to lose our superpower status. It would have been nice if the poll clarified this for us.

First, opposition to the war in this country may merely reflect opposition to losing. There has always been a fringe anti-war movement, but large scale opposition shouldn’t be read as being part of that. A plausible interpretation of the polling data is that the country supports doing the job that was set out, even if that wasn’t all that well-defined. The American people hate losing. The smartest of the Dems realize that calling for abrupt withdrawal will feel like calling for defeat, and will hand the Democratic party a defeat in turn.

Second, the ‘netroots’ notwithstanding, the Dems have a small majority, not a mandate. Stupidity and corruption can only go on for so long before incumbants will be swept out, and I think that that was done quite convincingly. However, the current group of elected officials was merely deemed less objectionable than what was already there. It seems to me that even an emphatic “NO!” to one side is not evidence of anything with respect to the other.

Moderate Democrats are already grumbling about not being led off the ‘left cliff’. They recognize that to cement power, they’ll have to not do what the last set of bums did to get thrown out.

But the ‘roots demand more, and if not placated, promise to turn ugly. But if they are placated, they could cost Dems the White House.

It promises to be entertaining, in any case. Both major parties are so ideologically constipated that the whole process may collapse in a heap, leaving a third party candidate viable. Whether to feel cheered or despressed, I can’t tell.

Meese was volubly unhappy about the media’s distortion of everything surrounding the war.