Basic Math and Critical Reading Skills

From an AP story headlined 'AP Poll: Few expect victory in Iraq':

"Support is continuing to erode and there's no particular reason to think it can be turned back," said John Mueller, an Ohio State University political scientist and author of "War, Presidents and Public Opinion." Mueller said that once people "drop off the bandwagon, it's unlikely they'll say 'I'm for it again.' Once they're off, they're off."

Even so, Americans are not necessarily intent on getting all U.S. troops out right away, the poll indicated. The survey found strong support for a two-year timetable if that's what it took to get U.S. troops out. Seventy-one percent said they would favor a two-year timeline from now until sometime in 2008, but when people are asked instead about a six-month timeline for withdrawal that number drops to 60 percent.

Check that last bit. When asked about a six-month timeline, the number "drops" to 60 percent.

In other words, 60 percent of respondents supported withdrawal of our troops within 6 months. 60 percent! That's three out of five. It's a large majority. It's a much bigger percentage than voted for George W. Bush in either presidential run. One usually "drops" to a small number, and there is usually a large fall involved.

But make it a two-year timetable and you pick up only another 11 percent. So the "drop" isn't very great, and the point is not that 6 months isn't preferred, but that an additional fraction are willing to wait longer, "if that's what it takes" to get the troops out. Nothing is 'dropping', there is no widespread hesitancy to pull out the troops quickly - just the reverse, in fact.

While it is technically true that 'Americans are not necessarily intent on getting all U.S. troops out right away', starting the paragraph that way is, I think, intentionally misleading. Why wasn't it:

In fact, the poll indicated a strong majority supports withdrawing U.S. troops within 6 months. 60 percent, three in five, were in favor of such a timetable, and another 11 percent favored withdrawal in as long as two years if that was what it took. In all, 71 percent of respondents favored withdrawal of U.S. troops."

There's more odd handling of the news in this article. The headline on this story is "Few Expect Victory in Iraq", which might be an interesting thing to know, particularly if you had paid attention to President Bush's renewed declarations about victory yesterday, but is it the most important result to report from this poll?

Right now the dominant public debate is "What do we do about Iraq?" and it seems an open question whether the President will accept the idea of even a two-year timeframe in the newly-delivered Baker-Hamilton report. Why isn't the headline in this story "Many Want Troops Home Soon?" News that 71 percent support a timeframe along the lines of Baker-Hamilton, and that 60 percent of the American people want out even sooner seems like an important thing to report up front, doesn't it?

This poll was taken before the ISG was all over the airwaves showing that even Wise Old Men could support a two-year scheme. It will be interesting to see how that affects the numbers the next time this poll is taken. Too bad it will take some close reading to dig them out of the AP's coverage.