Media Bias? What media bias?

My new jarhead friend Donnie over at the Katrinacrat blog links to a fairly amusing amusing post from Radar Online about Bush's popularity ratings (or lack thereof, at 28%) as compared to the popularity of such things as the Dentist (45% popularity), in-laws (at 68%? hard to believe that one), and getting kicked in the balls (41% popularity - just who are the 41% of numb-nuts that actually enjoy a swift jolt to the nads??).

The CBS News story that generated these posts says that the low rating indicates Americans are "deeply unhappy with his performance as president", and that the public is "strongly opposed to his plan for increasing troops in Iraq" (29% favor, 66% oppose). Fair enough - but take a look at the raw data from the poll (taken pre-SOTU, Jan. 18-21), which is linked as a PDF file from the story.

Dig around the file and you will find some interesting things - for example, only 16% of people believe that "Democrats have a plan for Iraq", or that 83% of Americans believe "a stable Iraq" is at least somewhat or very important to U.S. security.

And take a look at the job approval rating for the Democratic Congress - it registers barely above Bush at 33%. It appears that folks like a kick in the balls better than either Bush or Congress. Funny how those parts of the poll never made it into the CBS news coverage...

Royal farce

Michael Barone has a piece in today's WSJ about the increasing "royalism" of US presidential politics, with two rival families - the Clintons and the Bushs - taking turns in the White House.

But - if the trend continues - Barone presents us with a hideous vision of the future: a 2016 presidential race between Chelsea Clinton and Jenna Bush. Noooooooooooooooo............

A mixed bag

I heard some of what I wanted to hear in the President's speech last night regarding Iraq - it wasn't everything I'd hoped for, but it was adequate on the whole. I was especially glad to hear this bit (emphasis mine):

Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

I only hope that deeds will follow these words...a couple of B-52 Arclight strikes against terrorist staging areas in Syria and Iran would be a good start. The following should also have been done a long time ago:

To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis.

About. Frigging. Time.

I was also pleased with the sobriety of his statements regarding the impact of the changes:

This new strategy will not yield an immediate end to suicide bombings, assassinations, or IED attacks. Our enemies in Iraq will make every effort to ensure that our television screens are filled with images of death and suffering. Yet over time, we can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murderers, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad's residents.

However, I'd hoped for about double the announced increase in troop levels, but this is better than nothing. Moreover, he actually mentioned the very thing I was calling for a couple of days ago:

We can begin by working together to increase the size of the active Army and Marine Corps, so that America has the Armed Forces we need for the 21st century.

But when SecDef Gates announced the proposed increases, he put the number at a paltry 92,000. We need to increase the active duty strength by about 5 times that level, I'd say - but again it's better than nothing. This, by the way, is an issue wholly separate from Iraq, and if the Dems balk at this modest increase then they are even more stupid and irresponsible on national security than I'd feared.

A "moral catastrophe"

In the comments of my last post below, my friend Jeff implies that the 2006 election was some kind of referendum against the Iraq war. Certainly Iraq was a major issue in the election, but myriad other issues were at play as well, including conservative dissatisfaction with the big-spending Republican Congress. To the assertion that the last election was primarily a rebuke to the Bush Administration on the war, I have two words: Joe Lieberman.

Running as an independent, the pro-war Lieberman thrashed a liberal Democrat in a liberal Democratic state who was running on a strong anti-war platform. If Americans were so intensely anti-war, Lieberman would not be returning to the Senate this month.

Speaking of Lieberman, the good Senator had an eloquent op-ed in the WaPo recently about the calamity that a premature U.S. withdrawl from Iraq would bring:

As the hostile regimes in Iran and Syria appreciate -- at times, it seems, more keenly than we do -- failure in Iraq would be a strategic and moral catastrophe for the United States and its allies. Radical Islamist terrorist groups, both Sunni and Shiite, would reap victories simultaneously symbolic and tangible, as Iraq became a safe haven in which to train and strengthen their foot soldiers and Iran's terrorist agents. Hezbollah and Hamas would be greatly strengthened against their moderate opponents. One moderate Palestinian leader told me that a premature U.S. exit from Iraq would be a victory for Iran and the groups it is supporting in the region. Meanwhile, the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have bravely stood with us in the hope of a democratic future would face the killing fields.

More troops needed...across the board

At our monthy drill over the weekend I was able to meet with my friend Captain Jim, who has recently returned from a stint working with the J2 at CENTCOM in Iraq. Capt. Jim says that additional combat soldiers are definitely needed in Iraq (and President Bush is apparently going to announce a troop increase this evening). More than that, however, he noted there is an urgent need to bolster manpower across all the armed forces. Today we have less than 1.5 million men and women in active duty service; during the 1980s the U.S. had over 3.5 million uniformed active duty servicepeople.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, foolish politicans from both parties proclaimed a "peace dividend", and the military was gutted during the 1990s. Today we are still paying the price for this "holiday from history", and the present overall active duty strength (or lack thereof) has made President Bush reluctant to increase the occupation force in Iraq, since it will mean sending units for a third tour of duty in Iraq.

Tonight Bush will announce more troop deployments to Iraq, but will he call for a major increase in personnel authorizations overall? Doubtfull; he has shown no sign of doing this in the past six years, and with the Democrats holding Congress it's now even less likely to happen. Our long "holiday from history" continues...

UPDATE: Got my dates confused; Bush's address will be Wednesday evening. This afternoon I had the displeasure of catching that execrable asshat Ted Kennedy yammering on about the bill he's introducing to deny funds for any troop increase in Iraq. Well good, let's get the members of Congress on record - who is in favor of winning the war, and who is not?