Confronted with strong opposition to his Iraq policies, US President George W. Bush decides to interpret public opinion his own way. Actually, he says, people agree with him.
Democrats view the November elections that gave them control of Congress as a mandate to bring US troops home from Iraq. They are backed by evidence; election exit poll surveys by The Associated Press and television networks found 55 percent saying the US should withdraw some or all of its troops from Iraq.
Bush says Democrats have it all wrong: the public does not 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 on 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," Bush said.
Increasingly isolated on a war that is going badly, Bush has presented his alternative reality in other ways, too. He expresses understanding for the public's dismay over the unrelenting sectarian violence and US losses that have passed 3,400, but then asserts that the public's solution matches his.
"A lot of Americans want to know, you know, when?" he said at a Rose Garden news conference on 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.
In one released last Friday by CBS and the New York Times, 63 percent supported a troop withdrawal timetable of sometime next year.
Another earlier this month from USA Today and Gallup found 59 percent backing a withdrawal deadline that the US should stick to no matter what is happening in Iraq.
Bush aides say poll questions are asked so many ways, and often so imprecisely, that it is impossible to conclude that most Americans really want to get out. Failure, Bush says, is not what the public wants — they just do not fully understand that that is just what they will get if troops are pulled out before the Iraqi government is capable of keeping the country stable on its own.
Seeking to turn up the heat on this argument, Bush has relied lately on an al-Qaeda mantra. Terrorists remain dangerous, and fighting them in Iraq is key to neutralizing the threat, he says.
"It's hard for some Americans to see that, I fully understand it," Bush said. "I see it clearly."
Independent pollster Andrew Kohut said of the White House view: "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 is 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 president previously didn't try to co-opt polling for his benefit. He just said he ignored it.
In Ohio in mid-April, for instance, Bush was asked how he feels about his often dismal showings.
"Polls just go poof at times," he replied.
It was the same the next day in Michigan.
"If you make decisions based upon the latest opinion poll, you won't be thinking long-term strategy on behalf of the American people," the president said.
After weeks of negotiations between the White House and Capitol Hill's majority Democrats, last week ended with things going Bush's way. Congress passed and he signed a war spending bill that was stripped of any requirement that the war end.
But the debate is far from over.
The measure funds the war only through Sept. 30 — around the time that military commanders are scheduled to report to Bush and Congress on whether the troop increase the president ordered in January is quelling the violence as hoped.
Even Republicans have told Bush that a major reckoning is coming in September, and that they will be hard-pressed to continue to stand behind him if things do not look markedly better. Also due that month is an independent assessment of the Iraqi government's progress on measures aimed at lessening sectarian tensions that are fueling the violence.
Between now and then, Democrats do not intend to stay quiet. They plan a series of votes on whether US troops should stay in Iraq and whether the president has the authority to continue the war.
Bush is not likely to stay quiet, either.
Wayne Fields, an expert on presidential rhetoric at Washington University in St. Louis, said the president's new language exploits the fact that there is no one alternative strategy for the public to coalesce around, which clearly spells out how to bring troops home.
Bush can argue that people agree with him because no one can define the alternative, Fields said.
But, with Bush's job approval ratings so low and the public clear on what it thinks about the war, the president is taking a big gamble.
"He risks either the notion of being thought out of touch ... or to be thought simply duplicitous," Fields said.
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