CBS News Poll: Americans No Longer Support Iraq War

In what I'm sure will come as a shock to a delusional and out-of-touch White House, A CBS News poll released yesterday shows that three-quarters of Americans think George W. Bush is doing a lousy job handling Iraq, while only 21 percent expressly approve of Bush's conduct of the war.

(I'm still investigating reports that the same 21 percent believe Bush should have nominated Bruce Willis or Chuck Norris to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.)

The CBS poll, which was conducted last weekend and released Monday, shows what everyone outside of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue seems to know -- that the vast majority of Americans think the war is going from bad to worse and no longer support U.S. presence in Iraq.

"Americans have never been as pessimistic about the war in Iraq as they are today," reads the formal, CBS poll analysis. "They see things as going badly, and a majority doubts that the U.S. can win. Americans believe that the situation in Iraq is getting worse, and that Iraq will never become a stable democracy. More than six in 10 say the war was a mistake."

CBS also says those numbers show startling parallels between how Americans now feel about Iraq and how they felt about the catastrophic Vietnam war in 1973.

"Opposition to the war is now taking on historic proportions, with 62 percent saying it was 'a mistake' to send U.S. troops to Iraq — slightly more than told a Gallup Poll in 1973 that it was a mistake to send U.S. forces to Vietnam."

Other poll results:

• 71 percent say the war is going badly

• 52 percent believe the situation in Iraq is getting worse

• 85 percent now characterize the situation in Iraq as a civil war

• 50 percent say the U.S. show "start ending involvement" in Iraq

• 55 percent believe America should have stayed out of Iraq entirely

An even more important number shows that almost 60 percent of Americans think the U.S. should begin withdrawing from Iraq which, in Bush administration parlance, means that most of us are cut-and-runners. This is not surprising when you consider poll results showing that only 15 percent of us believe we are actually winning in Iraq.

Finally, the majority of Americans think they made the right choice on November 7, when they opted for Democratic leadership in the Senate and House of Representatives.

"By a 2-1 margin, Americans now say they have more confidence in congressional Democrats to handle the war than in the president," says CBS News.

Help is on the way, Folks. Help is on the way.