NY Times/CBS Poll: "Troop Buildup Has Not Raised Support, Poll Says"

Update [2007-9-9 19:45:37 by DemFromCT]: full poll results (all 28 pages) here.
Update [2007-9-9 19:53:59 by DemFromCT]: Matthew Dowd on HuffPost: The Wisdom of Crowds. Perhaps not what you'd expect, given his bio.

On the heels of the WaPo poll, more bad news for the White House.

A majority of Americans say the United States made a mistake getting involved in the war in Iraq, and the increased numbers of troops in recent months has either made things worse or had no impact at all, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Still, more people now say President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq, the so-called surge, has helped to improve the situation than said so last spring. With Congress deeply divided over the course of the war, Democrats and Republicans are waiting for the release later this week of a Bush administration progress report and testimony from General David Petreaus and others on Capitol Hill.

The poll, which contained an oversample of members of the United States military and their families, found that Americans say the Iraqi government is not doing all it can realistically be expected to do to establish order.

From CBS, data suggesting that Bush was right to compare Iraq to Vietnam, though he did so for the wrong reasons:

Eighty-six percent of Democrats and 68 percent of Independents say the war was a mistake, while 31 percent of Republicans agree, according to the poll.

The 62 percent figure is reminiscent of the numbers recorded in Gallup Polls in the early 1970’s when respondents were asked whether the U.S. made a mistake getting involved in Vietnam. Sixty-one percent thought the Vietnam war was a mistake in May, 1971, and 60 percent thought American involvement in Vietnam was a mistake in January, 1973, according to Gallup polls.

CBS' headline is 'more people think that the surge is working', highlighting a  6 point gain from August, although "no difference" remains a plurality at 45%

What this and other polls appear to show (no details or cross-tabs available yet) is that a small number of Republican voters can be convinced to support the President for limited periods.

On the military front, Americans' views of the impact of the "surge" strategy are divided by political affiliation. Fifty-six percent of Republicans think surge is making things better in Iraq, while only 19 percent of Democrats and 32 percent of Independents do.

Congress, and the press, take note. A broad spectrum of the American people have rejected this war as a mistake, and the surge as the answer that makes things better. There is nothing that says a Republican minority out of touch with independents and Democrats should be dictating our policy, or writing your headlines (or, for that matter, being the dominant voices on your Sunday shows).

Look at the polls, and review the myriad of independent reports that don't come from the WH. The mainstream thinking that these polls represent requires representation in the halls of Congress and dissemination by the media. As stated earlier,

the findings, from a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, underscore the depth of public antipathy toward the Iraq war, the doubts about the administration's policies and the limited confidence in the Iraqi government to meet its commitments to restore civil order.

While today's polls don't get at the intensity factor, these polls do. And anyone who thinks that the polls represent a political comeback for George W. Bush, the architect of the Iraq disaster, must be David Broder.

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