Home > Majority of Americans disapprove Bush’s Iraq policy— Where is his mandate?
Majority of Americans disapprove Bush’s Iraq policy— Where is his mandate?
by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 19 January 20052 comments
Edito Wars and conflicts International USA
WASHINGTON — Despite President George W. Bush’s belief that by reelecting him Americans expressed support for the war on Iraq, two opinion polls published Tuesday showed the opposite: the majority think the war was a mistake and disapprove of the way he is handling things in Iraq.
Shortly before Bush’s inauguration for his second term in office, and after he said in an interview that the 2004 election result proved that electorate approved of his handling of the war, a Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that 55 percent of Americans felt the Iraq war was not worth fighting, against 44 percent who thought it was.
Respondents also disapproved of Bush’s handling of the situation in Iraq by a 58 to 40 percent margin, and 57 percent of the 1,007 adults surveyed by telephone from January 12-16 were not confident that the upcoming elections in Iraq would lead to a stable government.
Similarly, a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll published in the nationally distributed newspaper showed that Americans believed it was a mistake sending troops to Iraq by a 52-to-47 percent margin.
Also based on a telephone survey of 1,007 adults, taken January 14-16, the USA Today poll found that respondents were now more or less equally divided as to whether the United States should keep, increase, reduce current troops levels in Iraq.
Until September 2004, the prevailing opinion in polls was that troop levels should be maintained.
Bush also got majority disapproval ratings on a number of other issues in the Washington Post/ABC News poll: 52 percent disapproved of the way he is handling the US economy, Social Security (55 percent), the budget deficit (58 percent), immigration (54 percent) and health care (51 percent).
Bush got high approval ratings for coping with terrorism (61 percent) and education (56 percent). In foreign affairs, environmental issues and taxes, respondents were divided.
However Bush’s overall approval rating stood slightly higher than last month at 52 percent, and 55 percent of those surveyed said they expected him to do a better job as president during the next four years than he did in his first term.
The margin of error for both polls was plus or minus three percentage points.
Forum posts
1 February 2005, 04:16
I am not sure who conducted the poll and who responded for them to come to the conclusion that the war was not worth fighting for, etc.
But it should be remembered that the questions themselves on any given poll do not neccessarily approximate what is being asked. That is, the response to the question is from the understanding of the person answering and the re-interpertation of the question/response as presented to the public in final form differs.
Needless to say, what this poll is saying and what the president says are both true. He does have the mandate and there are possibly a majority of people feeling that going to war was not worth it.
And even in my post, further resolution can be made of the very subjective phrase, "worth it". But more on that later perhaps.
1 February 2005, 16:06
To "I am not sure who conducted the poll...":
Thank you for your Republican-style flip-flop! You should run for President on the Democrat ticket in 2008, if we still have elections by then. The only mandate this girlie-Bush has is his college roommate/lover, cum Ambassador to Poland, cum member of the ’coalition of the willing’. All you girlie-Bushies believe fighting for a liar is justified so long as someone else does the fighting so your liar can keep on lying! You and your kind bring disgrace upon what was once "...the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave" by perverting this nation into "...the Land of Deceit and the Home of Depraved"!
YBV