The dog and pony show

A new AP-ipsos opinion poll was released yesterday afternoon:

AP Poll: Most Say Iraq War Is Failure Associated Press 09.10.07, 3:45 PM ET


WASHINGTON -
Most Americans see the Iraq war as a failure, despite a U.S. troop buildup of 30,000 troops that a majority says is not working, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Monday.
The survey was released as Gen. David Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, told Congress that the surge of 30,000 troops had largely met its military goals and that he can see that by next summer, they would be gone. That would leave a force of about 130,000.
Just 36 percent in the AP poll said the troop increase has helped stabilize Iraq, only slightly more than the 32 percent who said they thought it would in February as the buildup began. Voicing that view were nearly two-thirds of Republicans, about one in seven Democrats and about a third of independents.
In addition, 59 percent said they believe history will judge the Iraq war as a failure, including 28 percent who said it would be viewed as a complete failure.
Asked if the U.S. made a mistake going to war in Iraq in 2003, 57 percent said yes, about the same number who said so in April.
Most Democrats and independents agreed with those assessments, along with about three in 10 Republicans.
The poll involved telephone interviews with 1,000 adults conducted Sept. 6 to 9. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

And yet the pundits and talking heads are busy spouting nonsense, about how Petraeus and Crocker's "performance" will probably succeed in buying the Bush administration "more time" from the American people-- to continue their tragic misadventures in Iraq. No!! To say this is to completely misunderstand the message of the 2006 elections. The American people have already lost patience with this war. Now they are beginning to lose patience with Democratic politicians, who, they believe, should have done far more to disengage our military from Iraq than they have already.

Petraeus and Crocker have, in fact, conceded to "surge" opponents that the surge has not worked to enable any sort of political progress in Baghdad. This was the entire justification for the "surge" in the first place. What they are telling us this week is that some limited military successes, combined with new relationships with Sunni opponents of Al Quaeda in Iraq, might, if a lot of other things go better than expected, be seen some day as having partly contributed to at least a temporary stabilization of Iraq. Any of my American readers, who have suffered the shame of seeing their high school football team take a home-field drubbing, knows this kind of announcer happy-talk all too well. "Down by 27 points midway through the third quarter, our Cardinals have recovered a fumble on their own 18 yard line... could this be the momentum shifter that leads us to victory?" Don't bet on it.