spinbadz own

70% of 90,000 people who voted in today's Fox News Poll said: "My opinion is the same -- I support the President's strategy in Iraq.". Those are quite hefty figures, with voters reflecting virtually no change from their existing opinion. The figures are all the more compelling when one considers that triple the number of cable viewers watched President Bush's recent speech via Fox News Channel rather than CNN (per Drudge ).

Even the full court liberal press given to the 9/ll Commission Inquiry in concert with the recent rioting in Iraq has not wrought a significant shift in public opinion in the United States or amongst its allies.

It seems that various aspects of liberal schadenfreude (look it up ), the inanity of the shallow Vietnam comparisons, the collusion between press and Democrats in opposing the Bush administration, the quality of National Security Advisor Rice's testimony and the common sense of President Bush's confirmation of intent et cetera are apparent to the public.

Or it could be as Henry Kissinger sees it: "Success is the only strategy" (see George Will today).

Nobody (except Spain's new socialist government) believes the United Nations will succeed if the US fail, for as Will also points out:

"Before the war, the United Nations presided over spectacular corruption in the oil-for-food program. After the war, it took just one bomb to blow the United Nations out of Iraq. And the democratic forces in Iraq despise the United Nations as a collaborator with Saddam Hussein.

"However, some involvement by the United Nations would usefully blur the clarity of U.S. primacy..."

Nobody, or at least not many watchers of Bill O'Reilly's FNC program, are fooled or influenced by the overt and highly publicised anti-Bush campaigning by relatives of US soldiers who have died in Iraq. But if you opened (US) ABC News' website yesterday you would have been subjected to this triumphally placed "Quote of the Day":


' "I can't live another year like I've lived this one. The sacrifice that this family's made can never be understood by someone who hasn't gone through it … It's a burden I can't bear. My family can't bear it."

- John Witmer, whose daughter Michelle was killed in combat in Iraq. Now, he wants to prevent her two sisters from being sent back to Iraq. '

The Japanese government is evidently well aware of the dangers of this type of emotional appeal where it conflicts with official government policy. Somehow, the relatives of hostage victims have been persuaded not to publicly demand withdrawal of Japanese forces, which they were doing until yesterday. Prime Minister Koizumi, Japan's longest-serving head of state in two decades, continues to hold together the alliance with the US in Iraq in the face of strong opposition.

Vietnam comparisons are a flavor of the moment in the US press, and the Bush administration is certainly aware that public opinion started to significantly turn against that US campaign only after American soldiers had been dying and killing in a faraway place for many years.

Another interesting "Vietnam comparison" is brought to mind by William Safire's point today that John Kerry, if he were elected President, would need "Pentagon G.O.P. support, as Bill Clinton did" (Safire thus entertains the idea that Kerry night also appoint a Republican as Defence Secretary).

Just as the Defence establishment has traditionally been a Republican stronghold, the media has been a liberal stronghold. It was on the Vietnam issue that the two famously clashed and the media "won" a "war" of attrition over public opinion. The Watergate affair followed shortly after, and it was also in the '70s that the "pressure Israel" mantra took root and grew into the inane monster it is today.

Perhaps the tide is now turning, and the line taken by the Bush administration in the Iraq war will finally bury the nonsense we have seen since Vietnam.