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Monday, September 9, 2013

Polls Continue to Hit Obama on Syria Strike

Monday update:   New poll from McClatchy-Marist:  56% oppose striking Syria. AP-Ipsos:  61% want Obama's request to Congress turned down.  ABC/Wash Post:  64% oppose a strike.  New poll from Pew shows widening opposition. Now 28% for a strike, 63% against.   NYT just out tonight with its new poll showing 3 in 4 feel Obama has not clearly explained why he wants to hit Syria.
Over all, 56 percent disapprove of the president’s handling of the Syrian crisis so far, and 33 percent approve. There are sharp partisan differences on the president’s performance: 52 percent of Democrats approve of how he is dealing with Syria, while 77 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of independents disapprove.
Earlier:  Reuters-Ipsos doing a daily tracking poll, which has shown growing opposition to the Syria bombing every single day lately--proving the claim that the more people learn the less they like it, the opposite of what Obama hoped.  Today the results show 2 to 1 opposition--about 51% to 26%.   And there's a new Gallup poll, taken entirely after the Obama/Kerry offensive began.  It's a little more friendly, at 51% to 36% but still clocks in at the most unpopular U.S. military action in years.   Unlike the recent Pew and ABC surveys it showed Dems slightly favoring the action. 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Syria situation is nothing more than a concocted media device intended to get the NSA scandal off the front page here at home, something-anything to try shore up Obama's lost credibility as an adult before he faces the G20 folks whose economies he's been spying on, and the only way out of his red-line gaff, which his ego will not permit him to simply walk back (I cannot think of a single instance in which Obama has admitted to error).

The real story in my view is the awesomeness of the Guardian, and for a couple of reasons. Again, their timing was impeccable, blasting back to the NSA story while Obama stumbled his way through Russia (Oh, to be a fly on the wall as he sat down beside the president of Brazil - must have been hilarious. Even funnier and certainly scarier must have been the one-on-one with the grinning monster Putin - enough to frighten any high schooler).

And you've got to hand it to the Guardian for getting the NYT into the game, for sharing the limelight and access to the leaked materials while broadening the impact and credibility of their own reporting here in the US. Perhaps they will help the Times find their way back to great journalism. They've been sorely missed.

What has yet to be sufficiently reported about all of this is the damage it is undoubtedly doing to American tech companies. I read just last week that India may ban the use of gmail for communications with their government. Brazil is considering legislation against the NSA's information sharing partners, who've been getting paid millions yet still cling to claims of not knowing anything. Home grown solutions are seeing a ramp up in Germany, and my guess is that this trend will continue.

It's a good thing they didn't call it the National Secrecy Agency. Apparently, keeping secrets is not their strong suit. And it's ironic that their data wasn't encrypted (as Snowden has schooled journalists to do), that they failed to effectively monitor privileged users, that they failed to segment information and restrict access based on a need-to-know. Not confidence inspiring when as citizens we rely so heavily for our protection on their getting security right.