Fully 90% of Americans backed Bush one week after the first bombs fell in a "shock and awe"

Had to be a hunk of Dems in there somewhere.

Don


http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/opinions/ci_6495569

Robert Scheer: Bush losing touch with reality of Iraq War

AT what point will President Bush finally grasp the enormous disaster that the neo-conservatives, from Vice President Dick Cheney on down, have visited upon his presidency? Or, to put it numerically, just how does a president descend from a 92 percent approval rating one month after 9/11 - the highest of any president since modern polling began - to the two-thirds disapproval score that has stalked him through the last year, thanks to the Iraq debacle, without getting the message?

Two major polls released last week show that the vast majority of Americans grasp the salient lesson of the Iraq misadventure: "Winning" this war has nothing to do with winning the war on terrorism. Thus, the public overwhelmingly supports the congressional Democratic leadership's demand that the administration begin concrete steps to extract U.S. troops from Iraq.

<snip>Fully 90 percent of Americans backed Bush one week after the first bombs fell in a "shock and awe" campaign that neo-con ideologues at the Pentagon were convinced would lead a terrorized population to embrace democracy and other purported Western values.

As Winston Churchill once observed, a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth puts its pants on. But the truth eventually does catch up, and that is the specter that now haunts our president. There is simply no plausible national security argument for the United States' ongoing occupation of Iraq. That fact was driven home Tuesday, when American and Iranian negotiators met for the second time in Baghdad at the insistence of Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who was quite clear that peace will not come without the Iranian government's cooperation.

First, this represents the hardening of underlying views in the period running up to the invasion. When people claim there was not overwhelming support for the invasion in preceding months, and cite various polls in support, the claims are of little weight: this was the real feeling abroad in the populace.

Second, reading through to the underlying mood, and predicting where the currents will take the mass of people, is what political professionals do. Those with careers of any length do it pretty well. It was precisely this toxic atmosphere regarding Iraq that conditioned the calculation of Congressional Democrats in the vote on the enabling resolution, and that made the proposal itself such a political trap in service of the Republicans. There were no good options, given this undercurrent of the public mood, and rejection of it would have produced a tremendous slaughter in our Senatorial ranks in the following election, without preventing the action, which the new, more Republican and thoroughly chastened Congress would certainly have voted as its first business.

Third, this is why the 'I won't vote for anyone who voted for the I.W.R.!" has so little resonance with the public at large, and why charges of a candidate's having 'flip-flopped', or 'not apologizing', will carry no particular weight either. The largest bloc of voters in the country consists of people who have similarly changed their minds, and feel, too, they have nothing to apologize for. Far from disliking political figures who essentially reflect their own changed attitudes, they will identify with them, and be inclined to see them as people just like themselves, a priceless asset in electoral politics. Their scorn will be reserved for people who still persist in open endorsement of the invasion of Iraq, and this is what makes the Republican nomination process currently underway a death march.

at the time and our bus system was overwhelmed with protesters every weekend in the run up. We used to avoid shopping on weekends so we wouldn't have to deal with that mass of humanity going to and from the beach where the actions where held.

And there can indeed be local pockets where even a small minority seems to predominate.

Back in '72, every person of my daily acquaintance was voting for Sen. McGovern....

But, let's let bygones be bygones.

lol

We had some powerful attractants at our disposal....

In a time of national crisis, people tend to put politics aside and rally around the President.

:evilgrin:

as he said, he'll stay in Iraq even if Barney & Laura are his only 2 supporters left. And, by the end of this year, those might be his only supporters, along with Joe Lieberman & John McCain.

Appalled, and sickened that it ever got that far. :(

(And don't polls just reflect the percentage of those polled, not all of us?)

I didn't trust him for even a second. I didn't "rally" around him on 9/11 either. My BS detector was going off before the towers even fell to the ground.

a "10 percenter". But the friends I have made in the anti-war movement have more than compensated.

From the moment he was anointed POTUS, I have feared for this nation and on 9/11 all I could think about was Oh My God, look what we have for a President.
I knew from the first words out of his mouth that Iraq was the dumbest thing this nation ever did and it has been a long haul getting people to realize that he is a criminal.

I think a majority felt that way about Afghanistan but the nation was mostly divided down the middle about Iraq if I recall correctly. For cryin' out loud, Madonna and Sean Penn even knew Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction and wasn't linked to Al-Qtaeda.

Even after the most malicious propaganda campaign in American history.

I greatly admire Robert Scheer but I don't recall 90% support for shock & awe.

Maybe I'm wrong.

because he didn't have to be. The war was never about protecting "the American people", but enhancing himself and his "have-more" core constitutency!

:headbang:
rocknation

I don't need a daddy, what a nutcase he is. hopefully we and * will hopefully not see those numbers going up again. please do not fall into the trap again sheeples.

come a long, long way since then. I wish I had been wrong though and everything had gone just as they said, that there really were flowers and candy not the useless death we have seen.

up. It is hard to believe that 90% of the country was behind the toxic chimp.

The Swarm The Sleaze..you could see it in his Smirk.

traitors and looney.

and misrepresentations, the 2006 election was still TOO close. We barely took the Senate

What does that say about us?

Like Moore said in SICKCO, what kind of people are we?

Please remember that many of the Democrats in Congress also helped enable bush to invade Iraq, and gave the executive branch unprecidented powers. The IWR and the Patriot Act. Saying they were misled doesn't cut it

and that in itself says everything about the American public, especially after what we have been through

Incidently, what has been done to fix our election system since 2000?

What have the Democrats done since they took over Congress in 2006?

A lot of people fighting hard to keep the elections riggable, not just directly either.

Fine, they don't want to impeach, but what are they really doing?

especially when people have had the crap scared out of them .

I am proud to say that I was a 10% er , and was ridiculed and reviled for taking that stance ( not here, but in my real life)

Never wavered.

My heart was in my stomach watching those tanks roll across the desert, it seems like so long ago.

I know that a lot of people supported * at the time, but a lot of us did NOT support him. I suspect that more than 10% of the country was definitely not in support of him or the invasion.

That sounds about right to me.

That's 100% of conservatives, and a high pct of the Dem so-called moderates.

To speak out here was to risk things far worse than scorn, like property destruction or even a beating. Seriously.

Now they all hate him, and I get to say "I TOLD YOU SO".

there to demonstrate against the war, I might very well be shot. I took her warning to heart and decided to make discretion the better part of valor. Even so, I was physically assaulted in Los Angeles and threatened with death on two separate occasions. Doesn't happen much anymore.

The leaders of this party failed us miserably. Very few profiles in courage there.

Had they gotten together and taken that bold risk to oppose this thing, we might have gained enough steam to stop this thing by now.

this from the get-go, unlike many Dem Johnny-come-lately's).

10% ter's have won. We have grown 7 times in strength.

... the chimp was elected.

I wondered if the figure of 90% was correct - I couldn't believe that Bush ever got that sort of a score on any poll. I found this interesting site:
http://politicalarithmetik.blogspot.com/2005/11/approval-of-president-bush-2001.html

I, like most Americans, was horrified by what happened on 9/11 - I still didn't think that we were getting the real story from the WH or the MSM - I did some research back then and figured out that Iraq was not the threat - I did think that Osama was probably in Afghanistan and believed that it was important to capture him. But Iraq? I was totally against going there. When the USA attacked with SHOCK AND AWE, I was forced into being politically involved beyond voting and putting a bumper sticker on the car. I was pushed, motivated and prodded to get off my ass and do something to stop the madness.

I was never part of the 90%.

I lost friends who supported the horses-ass - I was called names and told I was anti-American and that I was the one that was delusional. When I showed up with signs and stood by the road with just a handful of people, I was told that I was making way for more terrorist attacks.

I do not regret becoming political. I regret that I wasn't morepolitically active prior to 9/11.

It was kinda like seeing a car accident. I couldn't pull away.

I think that is what they are getting in the poll not support.

I remember watching the coverage and thinking. OMFG the lil maniac did it. He's the anti-christ. The world is just about to end. It was sickening and exhilarating all @ the same time.

I was sorry for the people who died on 9/11, but I was never fooled by George W Bush...NEVER.



A DUer named Gina asked me the day after 9/11 what I thought about the attack and I told her it reminded me of the Reichstag Fire...it still does to this day. I'm not saying Bush did it but I am saying that just like Hitler and the Nazis, Bush and the GOP used the disaster to grab a huge chunk of power.

DEMs in my county can meet in a VW Bug. It is so red here it hurts, but still, I would guess a solid 10% was against the war.

Would think the percentage would be higher in more politically balanced areas.

I think the question was asked do you support the president, or country, something generalized. I don't think they asked if they supported Bush. And the poll had to be before my pet goat came out.

zalinda

"Do you believe the US needs to strike against the terrorists, wherever they are?"

That would easily get a 90%.

Just don't define 'terrorists'.

going to forgive and forget our candidates who were not part of that 10%.

on Afghanistan. Ongoing Benton County protest daily, 5-6 pm daily in Corvallis, OR:



http://jqjacobs.net/politics/impeach/

support the invasion in the lead up to it. It doesn't surprise me that so many supported chimp once it was ongoing. Those are two very different questions. Americans will rally around the troops once they are in harms way, and will hesitate to tell a pollster anything that seems to go against them.

sheep. I'm afraid Sheer has succumbed to this syndrome. It is both inaccurate and counter-productive (inflicting more demoralization on a demoralized and disenfranchised people).

The stat on approval of the war, taken during a period when U.S. troops were at max risk, is NOT an accurate reflection of American opinion of this war. He has cherry-picked ONE stat, from a narrow time period, in which many people would have feared that a negative answer would actually get soldiers killed.

The OVERWHELMING picture of American opinion on this war, in every other period, is negative to very negative, starting right at the beginning, just before the invasion (Feb. '03), when 56% of the American people opposed this war--in the face of relentless, 24/7 warmongering and fearmongering. 56%! That would be a landslide in a presidential election (and believe, me it was!). That figure has now risen from a significant majority to an overwhelming majority--over 70%!

I think it is critically important to understand that the war propaganda was never intended to convince us. It was intended to make us feel helpless, to make us believe the ILLUSION that most Americans supported the war, and that the great, peace-minded, justice-minded American majority were powerless to prevent it, or end it. But this doesn't fit some Leftist writers' notion that Americans are uninformed, head in the sand "sheeple." Instead of us trying to prove ourselves right, let's try to prove that the American were right--from the beginning!--and figure out how to re-empower them!

It isn't leftists who are saying the US 90% behind the war. I've never heard any leftists say any such drivel.

WTF are you talking about?

How gullible are people?? Do they believe what they hear on tv? I guess I learned early in life through a bad experience at 18 where I went to a church that tried to brain wash me into believing some weird stuff like don't go to college its the last days...to always think for myself after that.

I had no idea of any of the perceptions of people after 911. When people told me what the news was saying I couldn't believe anyone would swallow any of the BS the * were putting out there. I was flummoxed then and still am today.

for having my Attack Iraq, No - sticker.

To this day I have never supported the war in Iraq and I never felt that 9/11 was something to go to war over.

n/t

My son (then 13) is also. He said he was the only one in his school class to oppose the war.

I was disgusted with the whole thing. They had it on a big screen here at work. It was sickening. One of my co-workers called HR to complain and was told "If it bothers you perhaps you should look for a new job." No shit.

Corporate profits, lies and worker suppression...I was marching in the streets protesting against Bush's Iraq invasion before it occurred, I knew it was all bullshit, and it had to do more with corporate piratization & profit from our tax dollars and of stealing Iraqi oil...I knew that there was no WMD: they had fly overs, blockades night & day in Iraq for twelve years they knew Iraq's every move, I heard the inspectors say over & over Iraq had no WMD, I knew Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9-11, I knew it had nothing to do with "terrorism in US", I knew Iraq was a sovereign nation that NEVER attacked us, I knew it was all about corporations making billions of dollars...Of course this ALL was exposed as fact and I was correct....but as always people were swayed by republican lies and their corporate media...Why? Why are people such robots?

If you ever vote for a fucking republican, your voting for republican ideology...why don't people get it....Republican philosophy is corporations over people...Reagan lied like a motherfucker as does Bush and many idiot Dems went for it, not understanding what ideology means...but that's what republican ideology dictates and is always what inevitably becomes agenda...Why would anyone vote for a republican?

Just as now, many of the same Dems media believers are getting caught up in the media's - that it's only Hillary or Obama in the Dem race, day after day...They just can't see the corporate media bullshit right in front of their eyes, until it's far too late...but they'll always scream otherwise...

...

I guess I should read the whole thread before responding. I'd delete my post just entered below, since you rightfully point out the initial post is all wet.

I assume the OP meant to say after the first attack on Afghanistan, which, of course, has nothing to do with the IWR. I'm leaving it because it even further illustrates using bad data out of context to promote a position.

Where is Robert Heinlein's Lazurus Long when we need him?

I never backed bush on anything and protested his attack on Iraq . Everyone where I worked was in the 90% catagory , it was hell and my life has changed since then , alot . It's amazing how you get outed for what you stand for .

The BFFE and all the events that have gone along with it have changed family dynamics as well as work dynamics. My family was successfully fear-mongered and believed the whole, "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists" bullshit, not to mention the whole lock-step, "United we stand" jingo-bait. I love them but continue to look at them for disdain for falling for it, and I'm pretty sure I'm looked upon with distrust in return. Interesting, though. Today, the polls show that a majority of Americans are against the war, think the war was a mistake, and do not think it is helping us overall in the so-called, "War on Terror". But the media continues to paint Iraq as a bitterly-divisive issue.

:cry:

...with those 90% polls is the "rally-round-our-leader" effect: Ask people what they think should be done, and only a minority selects the Bush course; Ask "Do you support the President?", and you get that 90% "yes". That's how Poppy got it too, back in '90-'91.

It's simply a function of people recognizing they don't know the full story, and so trusting the judgement (very mistakenly, in this case) of the person they think does have the full perspective.

hindsight is great, but what exactly was the atmosphere under which those dems cast those votes quickly fades from memory

what's that expression about "the cold light of day" or some such referring to regretting last nights decisions the next morning?

That said, I don't know that your stat from one week AFTER the first bombs fell has a whole lot of bearing on the conditions when the vote was cast (what was it - a couple of months? I forget)

Once the die was cast, but before the exposure of "no WMD at all," it is not at all surprising that people asked in a poll whether they supported the president responded in the affirmative. Heck, at that point the hype over "shock and awe" was still rampant, casualties were low, there was little evidence yet to contradict the assertion that we'd be greeted with open arms. The judgment by many was probably "well, if it is to be done, it appears we are doing it with selective attacks to decapitate the dictatorship, get in and get out" and they supported him not for lying us into it but for appearing to be handling it reasonably judiciously.

Those who were not quite persuaded would cast aside those doubts and rally 'round. That is typical. Your 90% number has no bearing on what the level of support vs doubt was when the vote was cast. The point you make may still be relatively valid, but it would be better substantiated using meaningful data, if you have it.

I remember

I knew a lot of people here in conservative Texas that were against the invasion from the get-go.

It's possible I only am acquainted with that 10% of like-minded people, but it doesn't seem likely.

:toast: to the host that can boast the most roast.

My dad has never liked George W Bush, even after 9/11 he didn't really like him. But he strongly supported going into Afghanistan and so if they had polled him shortly after 9/11 he probably would've said that he approved of the job Bush was doing.

Also going through his head probably would've been, "Of course all that idiot probably did was have Colin Powell find Afghanistan on a map for him and say bomb that place."

thats a lie
I was not alone opposing this war I had others
90% is a Lie

And sad that 90% (what poll?) were duped into this BS!!