Poll Shows GOP Not Making Its Case

[Omaha Steve]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060915/D8K5GM2O0.html

Poll Shows GOP Not Making Its Case
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Sep 15, 4:20 PM (ET)

By LIZ SIDOTI

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush and Republicans want to convince voters the unpopular Iraq war is central in the anti-terror fight. Democrats argue they can win control of Congress if voters view Iraq - and the continued bloodshed there - on its own.

The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found Republicans haven't made their case despite a sustained effort to link the conflicts; a majority of the public views the two as distinct.

Sticking to the GOP strategy Friday, Bush characterized his decision to invade Iraq as a necessary step to protecting the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

"Never have I said that Saddam Hussein gave orders to attack 9/11," Bush said at a news conference. "What I did say was, after 9/11, when you see a threat, you've got to take it seriously. And I saw a threat in Saddam Hussein, as did Congress, as did the United Nations."

FULL story at link above.

[w4rma]

1. "Poll Shows Dems Making Their Case"

I despise the AP editors who write these headlines.

[Recursion]

2. Now I'm confused

A majority of voters buy the phony Iraq 9/11 connection, but don't buy the phony Iraq is central to the war on terror claim?

Ah, for a moment in the head of a freeper, just to understand how they think the way they do...

[NanceGreggs]

3. "For a moment in the head of a freeper ..."

Regardless of the fact that it is completely empty, I still doubt you'd be able to crawl into a space that small.

[skip fox]

5. Nice. This needs pointed out.

:)

[skip fox]

4. Doesn't mean we should relax. We need to frame a good message.

While the White House and its minions (as on Fox News) push the War on Terror as a way of framing (i.e., "hiding") the Iraq issue for the election, we need people to bring it out of hiding.

Here's one basic approach (I'm sure there are many others):

"Republicans and the administration don't want to run on the mess they made in Iraq, so like a magician they try to distract our attention by covering it under the umbrella of 'A War on Terror,' thereby hiding their blunders from the conception to the execution of the war, from WMD's and Sadam-terrorist's links to the civil war which is now in full progress. It's a GIANT SHELL GAME dreamed up by Rove. We need solutions, not PR tricks or a magician's slight of hand. They dress up the pig and then they want us to marry it."

Why can't we frame a message simply and compellingly in order to bounce these jokers. Almost all of the important facts are on our side, especially since the Republicians and the administration has been such an obvious failure by almost all standards?

A little less honestly: "If our treatment of prisoners is so kind, will the administration film a few of the harsher interrogations and allow congress to view them??"

[rodeodance]

6. Public views Iraq, war on terror as separate

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14854275/

Public views Iraq, war on terror as separate
Poll: GOP unable to link the conflicts in Americans' minds

Updated: 24 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - President Bush and Republicans want to convince voters the unpopular Iraq war is central in the anti-terror fight. Democrats argue they can win control of Congress if voters view Iraq - and the continued bloodshed there - on its own.

The latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found Republicans haven't made their case despite a sustained effort to link the conflicts; a majority of the public views the two as distinct.

Sticking to the GOP strategy Friday, Bush characterized his decision to invade Iraq as a necessary step to protecting the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.


Related stories

* Bush links Iraq war with war on terror
* Facing revolt, Bush defends terror proposals
* NBC/WSJ Poll: Americans remain down on GOP

Politics of terror
"Never have I said that Saddam Hussein gave orders to attack 9/11," Bush said at a news conference. "What I did say was, after 9/11, when you see a threat, you've got to take it seriously. And I saw a threat in Saddam Hussein, as did Congress, as did the United Nations."

[VegasWolf]

7. No thanks to Bush, Cheney, and Rice's constant harping. nt

[NVMojo]

8. gee, is America getting sick of the lies and spinning??

[dsharp88]

9. Anybody see Landrieu (D-La) calling GOP "boneheads"?

“America is tired of the wrongheaded and boneheaded leadership of the Republican Party that has sent $6.5 billion a month to Iraq when the front line was Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia,” Landrieu said.

The United States captured a man who did not attack this country in Saddam Hussein while letting go the man who did in Osama bin Laden, Landrieu said.

“They’re the ones who are in charge and Osama bin Laden is still loose,” Landrieu said.

Read it here:

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/politics/3925047.html

I loved it!

Don in New Orleans

[AndyTiedye]

10. Congress and the UN Went Along BECAUSE ** LIED TO THEM/US/EVERYONE

BUSH IS A LIAR

[struggle4progress]

11. Uh, the record shows the UN did NOT go along with BushCo's war plans

Inspectors Call U.S. Tips 'Garbage'
Feb. 20, 2003
While diplomatic maneuvering continues over Turkish bases and a new United Nations resolution, inside Iraq, U.N. arms inspectors are privately complaining about the quality of U.S. intelligence and accusing the United States of sending them on wild-goose chases ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/18/iraq/main537096.shtml

Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war
Secret document details American plan to bug phones and emails of key Security Council members
Martin Bright, Ed Vulliamy in New York and Peter Beaumont
Sunday March 2, 2003
The Observer
The United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win votes in favour of war against Iraq.
Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer. The disclosures were made in a memorandum written by a top official at the National Security Agency - the US body which intercepts communications around the world - and circulated to both senior agents in his organisation and to a friendly foreign intelligence agency asking for its input ...
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,905936,00.html

7 March 2003 | New York, USA
Statement to the United Nations Security Council
The Status of Nuclear Inspections in Iraq: An Update
by IAEA Director General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei
... After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq ...
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n006.shtml

Published on Saturday, March 8, 2003 by the Associated Press
UN Inspectors Say US Relied on Forged Reports of Iraq Nuclear Efforts
by William Kole
UNITED NATIONS - U.N. weapons inspectors cast doubts on U.S. assertions about Iraq's weapons programs, saying Baghdad is cooperating with inspections and some documents presented as evidence were forged. Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that experts had dismissed as counterfeit documents that allegedly showed Iraqi officials shopping for uranium in Africa two years ago. ElBaradei, who made his strongest statement yet in support of Iraqi cooperation, also rejected a Bush administration claim that Iraq had tried to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes to use in centrifuges for uranium enrichment. "There is no indication of resumed nuclear activities," he said ...
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0308-06.htm

France and Russia will vote no
By Toby Harnden, Philip Delves Broughton and Ben Aris
(Filed: 11/03/2003)
Britain and America suffered a double setback to their frantic attempts to secure a second United Nations resolution over Iraq last night when France and Russia said they would vote against ...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/03/11/wirq11.xml

Posted 3/17/2003 5:40 AM Updated 3/17/2003 1:16 PM
U.S advises weapons inspectors to leave Iraq
VIENNA, Austria (AP) — In the clearest sign yet that war with Iraq is imminent, the United States has advised U.N. weapons inspectors to begin pulling out of Baghdad, the U.N. nuclear agency chief said Monday ...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-17-inspectors-iraq_x.htm

Bush bars UN weapons teams from Iraq
By Caroline Overington in New York and Marian Wilkinson in Washington
April 24 2003
The United States will not permit United Nations weapons inspectors to return to Iraq, saying the US military has taken over the role of searching for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. In simultaneous briefings in New York and Washington, both the White House and the US ambassador to the UN said they saw no role in postwar Iraq for the UN weapons inspection teams. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters in Washington to "make no mistake about it. The United States and the coalition have taken on the responsibility for dismantling Iraq's WMD ..." ...
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/23/1050777306319.html

Bush ignores UN call for inspectors
By Colum Lynch at the United Nations and David Sanger aboard Air Force One
June 7 2003
United Nations Security Council members have called on the Bush Administration to allow UN weapons inspectors to return to Iraq to certify whether Baghdad possessed biological and chemical weapons before the war. But their plea was shrugged off by President George Bush, who vowed to "reveal the truth" about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. The call for a resumption of UN inspections, which was endorsed on Thursday by an overwhelming majority of council members, including Britain, America's closest military ally, came as the Bush Administration faces charges by members of Congress and some intelligence analysts that it may have exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq to justify the invasion. It also reflected a growing consensus in the 15-nation council that the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) should test US and British claims that Iraq continued to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons ...
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/06/1054700387263.html

[TexasLawyer]

12. "Black is white" says Bush

Sorry W, you're just not making your case.