When Did the Mainstream Become Extreme?
Earlier this week, MSNBC’s chief White House correspondent Norah O’Donnell characterized Cindy Sheehan and former FBI agent/Democratic candidate for Congress Coleen Rowley as anti-war extremists. Two days later, President Bush continued this theme of marginalizing the growing anti-war movement, and Sheehan in particular, as not representing the views of most military families .
I would like to see the opinion polls that underlie these two claims.
As far as I can see, the anti-war position is as much the mainstream position in this country as the pro-war position, if not more so. According to a July 2005 study from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press , 49% of Americans feel we should set a timetable for troop withdrawal, compared to 45% who think we should not. 50% are more concerned that the US will wait too long to withdraw compared to 34% who are more concerned that we will leave too soon.
Further, Pew reports that more people (47%) feel that the war in Iraq is hurting the war on terror than think the war is helping it (39%). And these numbers have been moving in the anti-war direction steadily since October 2004. The study also found that 45% of Americans feel the war in Iraq has increased the chances of terror attacks in the US, compared to 36% in October 2004. By comparison, the percent of Americans who feel the war has lessened the chances of terror attacks in the US has fallen from 32% in October 2004 to 22% in July 2005. And while Pew reports that 52% of Americans feel we should keep the troops in Iraq until it becomes stable, 43% say bring them home now.
More importantly, the Pew study finds the big issue is that 64% Americans feel the President has no clear plan for the war in Iraq compared to 27% who feel he does. Not surprisingly, these numbers coincide with a plummeting of Bush’s approval rating, which at 45% in August 2005, according to the American Research Group, is closing in on Nixon’s approval rating during Watergate.
To add more context, Gallup reports that the pattern of rising opposition to the war in Iraq is eerily similar to the rise of opposition to the Vietnam War. According to Gallup, 54% of Americans now believe it was a mistake to send troops to Iraq. I find this study truly intriguing because it casts doubts on the role of the media in driving the anti-war movement. Critics of the anti-war movement during Vietnam blamed Walter Cronkite and the media for turning public opinion on the war. But, unlike that war, the mainstream media during this war have not supported the anti-war movement. To me, this suggests that the facts about the state of the war efforts, both then and now, are the driving force behind the anti-war movement.
In his seminal research on the impact of rising troop casualties and declining support for wars John Mueller demonstrated that in both Korea and Vietnam it was rising body counts and mismanagement of wars that lead to anti-war movements. Rather than blame the media for how it reports the war, presidents would be better served by blaming the facts of a war going bad for anti-war movements (reminds me of when Secretary Rumsfeld blamed publication of torture pictures from Abu Ghraib for the scandal, rather than the actual OCCURRENCE of torture at the prison).
So I ask again, when did the mainstream become extreme? The polling data clearly shows that anti-war sentiment in the US is as likely, if not MORE likely, than pro-war sentiment. To say anti-war protesters don’t represent the majority, as the President would like us to believe, is only marginally true among some, but not all opinion polls. To say anti-war protestors are extremists, as O’Donnell claims, is simply absurd. Anti-war protestors are as normal today as apple pie.