Looking for Protection Against the Reality-Based Community

The AP takes a critical look at the Prez's claims that the American people back him on Iraq and don't want to withdraw. This is the kind of news analysis that journalists don't seem to offer much any more. They've got great access to the facts of a situation, so they should start putting them together again rather than acting as a steno service for whatever message a politician wants to get out. If the Prez wants to claim that the public is behind him, it's only fair that someone point out what we all know, that the actual polls beg to differ.

Confronted with strong opposition to his Iraq policies, President Bush decides to interpret public opinion his own way. Actually, he says, people agree with him.

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The president says Democrats have it all wrong: the public doesn't want the troops pulled out — they want to give the military more support in its mission.

"Last November, the American people said they were frustrated and wanted a change in our strategy in Iraq," he said April 24, ahead of a veto showdown with congressional Democrats over their desire to legislation a troop withdrawal timeline. "I listened. Today, General David Petraeus is carrying out a strategy that is dramatically different from our previous course."

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"A lot of Americans want to know, you know, when?" he said at a Rose Garden news conference Thursday. "When are you going to win?"

Also in that session, Bush said: "I recognize there are a handful there, or some, who just say, 'Get out, you know, it's just not worth it. Let's just leave.' I strongly disagree with that attitude. Most Americans do as well."

In fact, polls show Americans do not disagree, and that leaving — not winning — is their main goal.

The AP also includes some response to the White House from pollster Andrew Kohut:

"I don't see what they're talking about."

"They want to know when American troops are going to leave," Kohut, director of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, said of the public. "They certainly want to win. But their hopes have been dashed."

Kohut has found it notable that there's such a consensus in poll findings.

"When the public hasn't made up its mind or hasn't thought about things, there's a lot of variation in the polls," he said. "But there's a fair amount of agreement now."

The report closes with a stronger challenge to the Prez's veracity than I would've expected. It leads up to a quote from Wayne Fields, described as "an expert on presidential rhetoric at Washington University in St. Louis."

But, with the president's job approval ratings so low and the public well aware of what it thinks about the war, Bush is taking a big gamble.

"This is a very tricky thing in our politics. We want to think that we want our leaders to stand up to public opinion. But we also like to think of ourselves as being in a democracy where we are listened to," Fields said. "He risks either the notion of being thought out of touch ... or to be thought simply duplicitous."

Out of touch or duplicitous. Who's taking which side?