52% Now Say Bush "Intentionally Misled The American Public" Into Iraq War

by Steve

The Post has released the details of its poll that is running tonight on ABC News. Although this poll has a 48% approve/51% disapprove rating of Bush’s job performance, check out some of the down-questionnaire items:

First, note that for the first time, a full 40% say they “strongly disapprove” of Bush’s job performance, which dwarfs those who say they “strongly approve” (27%).

Second, and again for the first time, a majority (52%) now say that the Bush Administration “intentionally misled the American public” in making its case for war in Iraq.

Third, 57% now say that the Bush Administration did intentionally exaggerate its evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

(Translation for Tweety: This means Bush is a lying prick.)

Fourth, 51% now say the war was a mistake.

And lastly, it should be pointed out that this poll, like many others, is weighted to reflect census and demographic factors, and not by party ID. But this poll, like other recent polls, not only shows a Democratic self-identification advantage of 6 points (34% to 28%), but it also shows that more respondents self-identified as Independents (31%) than Republicans.

And that is one stat that Karl is paying attention to. Because it may be successful politics to build re-election efforts around a bedrock of 35-38% of Stepford cultists, you cannot engineer political realignments that will last several cycles when your bedrock falls into the low 30's or even lower only six months into a second term, amidst signs that Independents are having second thoughts.