Most Americans no longer believe the war in Iraq has made their country safer, and more than 60 per cent of the country believes the military is bogged down in a conflict that was not worth fighting in the first place, according to a new opinion poll offering only bad news to the Bush administration.
The poll for The Washington Post and ABC News poll, published yesterday, was the first survey in which a majority of Americans rejected the White House's argument that invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein was good for domestic security. The poll also suggested that opinions were almost exactly evenly divided between those with a positive impression of President Bush's "war on terror" and those it viewed it negatively.
The findings were particularly stunning, since security was among the leading issues on which Mr Bush won re-election last November. At that time, his approval ratings on anti-terrorism policy were roughly 60-40.
[. . .]
The Iraq findings were the most striking, because the public has clearly rejected the line put out by President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney that the US is turning the corner and that the insurgency is in its last throes. Almost 900 Iraqis and Americans have been killed in the past six weeks. Iraq's oil pipeline to Turkey was hit by a new sabotage attack yesterday.
Pru e-mailed the above from the UK's Independent. It's from Andrew Gumbel's "Americans turn against Bush and a war on Iraq that is getting nowhere."
Pru notes that reading the entry on Elisabeth Bumiller's "coverage" yesterday, she couldn't believe it and had to see it for herself. "She's quite daft, isn't she?" asked Pru.
Bumiller's article was quite the laugh-fest in London. Well . . . at least Bumiller's spreading laughter if nothing else. A sort of stand up good will ambassador.
Pru notes that "we could not believe this was from the supposed 'greatest paper of the United States of America.' We kept passing it back and forth and reading aloud from her article amidst peals of laughter."
Okay, so I made a mistake in that entry yesterday. I said there was no where for her to go from this. Wrong! Many times I am wrong. And clearly, I did not anticipate the reaction she would cause across the Atlantic. Pru suggests that Keeping Up Appearances should be revived with Bumiller in the lead because that's what Bumiller's reporting passes for to Pru and her crowd, a woman willing to committ any desperate act to "impress her perceived betters."
Pru, you are absolutely right and I was 100% wrong. You should come over here and give career counseling because, believe me, Bumiller's far from the only "reporter" needing to seek another profession. Good luck on the comic reading of Bumiller's "Bush and Blair Deny 'Fixed' Iraq Reports" that and your friends will be delivering at a party this weekend, I'm sure it will be the hit of the party. They're even working up a little song about the Elite Fluff Patrol. They've also dubbed their reading "The Dementia Monologues."
We'll also note this which Pru said reads as though it was directed to the New York Times. (It reads, to me, like a pimp slap to the majority of the mainstream media in this country.) From Gumbel's article:
The Downing Street memo about an early decision having been taken to go to war and of the need for justification to be found for the Iraq invasion, is unlikely to have played much role as it has been given little prominence in mainstream US reporting.
Pru advises that the Elite Fluff Patrol theme they're composing will be sung in the manner of "Gracie Fields, someone I doubt many of your members will know of" (I'm pulling a blank) and offers these lyrics:
The elite fluff patrol can take a row
And turn it into a sunbeam
The elite fluff patrol can take a no
And turn into a dream team
When it's raining they see only sun
When he's losing they swear he's won
. . .
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