Bible-thumpers backing off of Bush on Iraq

[bigtree]

U.S. evangelical support for Iraq war slipping

By Ed Stoddard
Reuters
Friday, October 27, 2006; 7:34 AM

DALLAS (Reuters) - A new poll shows support for the war in Iraq is slipping among white evangelical Protestants, previously a key pillar of support for President George W. Bush's conduct of the conflict.

The poll is the latest bad domestic news for Bush and the Republicans about Iraq with just 12 days to go to congressional elections in which the Democrats are widely expected to capture control of the House of Representatives.

Conducted by the PEW Research Center, it found that 58 percent of white evangelical Protestants surveyed felt the United States made the right decision in using force in Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein, below the 71 percent in a previous poll in September.

Scott Keeter of the PEW Research Center said it was hard to say why evangelical support seemed to have fallen so sharply but geography could be one reason.

"Many evangelicals are in the South and the military presence there is quite large and so the impact of the war on local communities is probably greater there," he said.

The PEW poll also found that only 48 percent of white evangelical Protestants now thought the war effort was going very or fairly well, versus 61 percent in September.

report: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/27/AR2006102700358_pf.html



http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree

[lcordero2]

1. !!!!!!!!!!!!

I found a person on another discussion forum that was more hostile to the Iraq War than all of DU combined. He is a church-going God-Fearing Evangelical.

[bigtree]

2. Juan Cole says: Bush Incompetence Said to Delay Second Coming

"These numbers matter because evangelicals are a quarter of the people who actually bother to vote, and 78 percent of them voted Republican 2 years ago. Only 58 percent say they are satisfied with the party now, and Iraq and the Foley scandal are driving the discontent.

Of course, evangelicals like other Americans are seeing articles like this one in which Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blames the US military for things going wrong in Iraq, denies that he has accepted the benchmarks set by the US ambassador, maintains he could do a better job with his own army if the US would just get out of the way, and downplays the role of Shiite militias in the country's violence. The tirades came in response to al-Maliki's perception that Bush is playing politics with Iraq for the election season, and is doing and saying things that could cause Maliki's government to fall. The tiff is not an edifying spectacle for the American public, which is paying $336 billion to watch it and has seen 24,000 of its troops dead and wounded."

http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/war-support-among-evangelicals.html