Apparently democrats.com ran a poll to show that everyone is for defunding:
The single largest group – 40% – want Bush to bring U.S. troops home within 6 months using funds Congress has already given him for Iraq, which now totals $450 billion.
And then uses that poll to bash Reid over refusing to bring a vote on funding up on the floor of the Senate.
However, there is a problem with this.
Requiring Bush to bring troops home in 6 months with existing funding is an actual action by Congress – i.e., passing a bill telling him to do so. This is assuming that there is existing funding to do this in the first place.
Also, this isn’t truly “defunding” since, theoretically, troops would be home before funding expired. It’s not necessarily surprising that people would support this action since it both brings troops back and clearly doesn’t leave them without funding.
Which is why saying that this poll shows that people support defunding is a misrepresentation of the poll. It doesn’t support defunding the war, it supports telling Bush to get out, which is pretty much nothing new. The only new thing about this poll is asking people whether pulling troops out with already existing funding (assuming it is sufficient) is acceptable, and something like 55% of those who want troops to be out within a year thought so.
Heck, if one could assure that there was sufficient funding and that this pullout would actually occur, I would be for it, and I think defunding would result in a Republican president and congress in 2008 (to stress how much I’m against it).
But as I said, as much as they might try to pretend otherwise, this poll doesn’t ask about defunding, it asks what to do with the funding already allocated, which is an entirely different question. If they wanted to ask people whether they supported Congress refusing to pass for funding for the war, period, they would have asked it. But they didn’t, probably because they knew it would be a loser, especially when people are given other choices.
And given the situation of 50 votes in favor of the war and President Bush’s veto, we’re in a situation where there are two ultimate choices: either Congress passes the funding as Bush wants it, or refuses to pass any more funding at all, but also without any demands on Bush either. If one really wanted to get a look to see what Americans wanted, that is the type of poll question they would ask.
Instead, Democrats.com tried to ask a question which sounded like they were asking about defunding, and which they are trying to claim asked about defunding, but doesn’t really ask about defunding.
On a side note, the second article comes up with this brilliant plan to force Bush’s hand:
Reid could get the result he wants by using his power as Majority Leader to block all funding for Iraq. Then when Bush gets concerned, Reid can persuade Bush to agree to the compromise he describes above.
Of course Bush could refuse to compromise, in which case Bush would have to steal money from other accounts to keep the occupation going on his terms. And then Democrats would have one more reason to impeach him – and they would have the support of 73% of America.
So Harry, if you want to negotiate with Bush, start by blocking all funds – and make Bush compromise to meet your terms.
There are some serious problems with this. First, Bush won’t get concerned because he knows that there are enough democrats in conservative districts who are pretty certain that they will lose their next election if they go with this gambit and will force a vote on funding.
Even if this isn’t the case, the article goes ahead and says one option Bush could do to keep funding the war, and of course brings out the old “then impeach him!” line – and on top of that states that 73% would support said impeachment because 73% in the poll wants out of Iraq in a year (which, of course, are two totally separate and unrelated questions).
And this, of course, completely ignores the fact that people see Congress as the source of funding, and thus if bad things occur to troops because they lack funding, they aren’t going to blame Bush, they’re going to blame Congress and the democrats.
However, defunders are so convinced of their rightness, that they reject the possibility that democrats might get blamed for such a thing as ludicrous, pointing to Bush’s approval ratings, which have nothing to do with whether they support troops getting funding or not.
