Partisan Divide on Iraq Exceeds Split on Vietnam (NYT

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

By ROBIN TONER and JIM RUTENBERG
Published: July 30, 2006

WASHINGTON — No military conflict in modern times has divided Americans on partisan lines more than the war in Iraq, scholars and pollsters say — not even Vietnam. And those divisions are likely to intensify in what is expected to be a contentious fall election campaign.

The latest New York Times/CBS News poll shows what one expert describes as a continuing “chasm” between the way Republicans and Democrats see the war. Three-fourths of the Republicans, for example, said the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, while just 24 percent of the Democrats did. Independents split down the middle.

“The present divisions are quite without precedent,” said Ole R. Holsti, a professor of political science at Duke University and the author of “Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy.”

The Vietnam War caused a wrenching debate that echoes to this day and shaped both parties, but at the time, public opinion did not divide so starkly on party lines, experts say. The partisan divide on Iraq has fluctuated but endured across two intensely fought campaigns in which war and peace — and the overarching campaign against terrorism — have figured heavily. Each party has its internal differences, especially on future strategy for Iraq. But the overall divide is a defining feature of the fall campaign.

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/washington/30war.html?hp&ex=1154232000&en=db934dc08125cdd5&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[HereSince1628]

1. Divided maybe but not as in the street or on campus

We haven't seen much in the way of civil unrest. Nothing that causes police cars to be overturned in Chicago's Grant Park, no Military Research Blown-Up on campuses and surely no one shot down by the Ohio National Guard.

[jpak]

7. Reinstate the Draft and see what happens

Even then Chickenhawks will turn against the war....

[cliss]

8. Good point.

Many people have pointed out that there seems to be a lot of lethargy, not really concerned about this, too busy etc etc.

This would explain it.

[Demeter]

9. Throw In the Coming Oil Embargo, and It's Curtains for GOP

Chavez and Iran will bury us.

[HereSince1628]

10. yeah, I think the absence of a draft certainly changes public opinion

If the draft was started it certainly would get the attention of those subject to be drafted. Whether it would lead to riots as it did in the 60's and 70's I don't know.

The police state was up then but it seems rather more sophisticated and better organized now, their hidden agents actually take the LEAD of the anti-war protestors and march them into the rubber and wooden bullets of the police.

[saigon68]

12. Yes draft their sorry young asses

especially Scum like Pierce Bush

[Pirate Smile]

2. It is a very interesting article and poll - not surprising results, not at

all.

[flyarm]

3. PERSONALLY I THINK IT SPLITS MORE ON THE

informed and non-informed..and the media's role in the utter ignorance of Americans

and the greatest ignorance is in those who watch faux news!

fly

[krkaufman]

14. Well said! n/t

[grytpype]

4. The Repugs know the war was a mistake, they just won't say so.

They stay loyal to their mongoloid Leader. It's a cult, and Bush is like Jim Jones or Charles Manson, a nutcase who is leading his flock to destruction.

[gulliver]

5. The elephant in the room is the partisan divide.

There is a chasm on every issue. There is no attempt to see right and wrong. The GOP and Bushies do that on purpose.

If and when the voters actually pay attention, Bush and the GOP will face a harsh judgement. They divided their country to preserve their lies. They spent every asset our country had, tangible and intangible, to preserve their power. The Bushists don't hate America; that's where their best victims live.

[grytpype]

6. What a sh*tty analysis.

I am getting sick of these thumbsucker articles that don't come anywhere near the real issue.

It's just a bunch of political consultants scratching their heads and wondering where all this division is coming from. "Gosh, I wonder why the country is so polarized, blah blah blah."

The article says it's plain ol' partisanship, and the Dems being so anti-war after Vietnam.

What bullsh*t.

What's dividing the country is that Bush lied us into the war, then he lost the war, but he won't pull us out of Iraq and he is still in the White House f*cking things up.

The Dems know it, the Repugs know it too but they won't own up to their colossal mistake of backing that moron. The article says, "Among Republican voters in the latest Times/CBS poll, only 49 percent said they believed that the United States was winning the war, and 41 percent said neither side was winning." That means only 10% of Repugs think we're winning! TEN PERCENT! And they still support Dear Leader, even though that Kool Aid sure did taste funny!

[gratuitous]

11. There ya go

"Divide" implies that there's some kind of reasonable, nearly even debate about things. When what it really is is a near consensus, one of a startling historicity. Without much of a media push at all, without anywhere near an even-handed airing of all viewpoints, the American public all by itself has concluded that the best that can be said about the Iraq debacle is that "neither side is winning." Considering the coverage in most major media, how did such a large segment of the public (41% of Republicans, even) decide either that neither side is winning, or that we're on the short end of things in Iraq.

The public hasn't formed this conclusion through Meet the Press, or Fox and Friends, or Hardball, or the evening news, all of which through their guests and the stories they cover point up over and over and over again just what a swell job our star-spangled, freckle-faced boys and girls are doing for the good old red, white and blue. Nobody is allowed on who is a consistent voice for peace, nobody is allowed on who was right from the get-go in 2002, nobody is allowed on who has the least thing to say against the methods and tactics our country is so shamefully using from Guantanamo to Basra to Fallujah to Kabul and beyond.

Even this bullshit article tries to paint the consensus as a "divide" in the headline, when anyone who bothers to read the story would reasonably conclude that the American public is fed up with the Bush Doctrine, a disastrous and short-sighted bit of lone wolf diplomacy that only makes sense if you're on drugs. But who in the major media will say that? And say it every time? Nobody.

[bemildred]

13. Bullshit, This is not VietNam yet,

God willing we will get there though.