Polling the Battle of the Bulge

[Lemur]

This is just fascinating. Apparently an Admin. flack made some comment about how polls would be bad in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge, thus explaining why the U.S. isn't lined up behind Bush. That's not the interesting part.

The good bit is that this comment flushed a researcher out of the brush who has access to the polling data from ... the Battle of the Bulge! Most excellent!

In fact, there was a poll taken by Gallup from Dec. 31, 1944, to Jan. 4, 1945 -- three years into that war and right in the middle of the bloody Battle of the Bulge, where U.S. casualties were estimated between 70,000 and 80,000. It found that 73 percent of Americans would refuse to make peace with Adolf Hitler if he offered it and that 86 percent of Americans thought there was no chance that we would lose the war in Europe.

The question asked was: "If Hitler offered to make peace now and would give up all land he has conquered, should we try to work out a peace or should we go on fighting until the German army is completely defeated?...

Support for the war was bipartisan. About 78 percent of those voting for FDR in 1944 wanted to keep fighting until the German army was destroyed, Berinsky found, and 73 percent of those voting for the Republicans' Thomas Dewey felt the same.

All poll junkies, please comment. Or should we be called poll smokers?

[Louis VI the Fat]

All poll junkies, please comment. Or should we be called poll smokers?

Hehe, speaking of which, it sounds as if press secretary Tony Snow did his surname justice and used some when he issued his statement.

Pwnd.


Ah, some good poll like this shows why Bush should marilize legajuana.

[Aenlic]

One day maybe technology will allow us to hold their lying feet to the fire while they're making the statements. Would be funny.

Like on Wednesday night, this week, when that dumbass on Faux News, John Gibson, was ranting and raving about how Amnesty International was full of hypocrites and why hadn't they condemned the torture of those two U.S. soldiers. Turns out that very morning, Amnesty International had condemned that very thing. What a goober.

There should be a button to push that gives them a little electric shock when they lie and twist facts and make asses of themselves - both parties, whatever political persuasion. If you're a talking head, pundit or spokesperson, ZAP! when you lie. Can you imagine how Bill O'Reilly's hair would look? Or any party's press secretary? Van de Graaf generator time. Blow Tucker Carlson's bow tie into orbit!

[InsaneApache]

Ah, some good poll like this shows why Bush should marilize legajuana.

Thish ish true, I somtimesh get my jurds all wumbled up as well....

[Crazed Rabbit]

Tony Snow didn't realize that the press' reporting of [the] war, and from that much public perception, has greatly changed since WWII.

Can you imagine today's media reporting WWII?

Crazed Rabbit

[Brenus]

The difference was more the US soldiers went deep in the Nazi occupied Europe, more they were convinced of the just cause they were fighting (and dying) for. Not only the SS killed their prisoners, but all the civilian populations welcome them (even the Germans). To ignore (at least for the ground soldiers) the existence of the Death camps and to liberate one gave you a good hint of Hitler’s regime.
WW2 was imposed on the US. The morality was on US side, the legality was on US side.

It is quite different when you go in war to find WMD and to capture and destroy evil terrorists linked with the one who attack your country and find out there is none of these. Then the populations you liberated started to be unhappy because you are still here, imposing your view on how they should run their country and worst, to take their money and pretending you give them money.

It is not the public opinion which changed; it is the reasons for the war.

[rotorgun]

Tony Snow's comparison of the war in Iraq to WWII, and the amount of support that Americans have for the war in Iraq as a complete non sequetor. There is simply no comparison IMHO and I am quite offended that supporters of Bush's little elective war try to paint those of us who don't support it as somehow unpatriotic. It is simply balderdash! Indeed, as if a war to save western civilization can be compared to this god awful mess of an imperialistic, oil field saving, dirty little capitalistic adventure at the taxpayers' expense of a conflict!
I am utterly astounded at how completely shallow some people are.

[Watchman]

"The King shall never lay down his arms. He loves war more than his lands. This shall lead him to make war his entire life, if only to support his army in a foreign land, for he cannot feed it in his own. This I've determined from the many conversations I've had with him."
- Hugues de Terlon, French ambassador to Charles X Gustav of Sweden for several years, in a letter to his superiors on the eve of the invasion of Denmark, 1658

Read that the other day. Somehow fitting, all the more so as Charles's earlier Polish adventure makes an interesting allegory to Iraq...