Talk About The War

New poll out from Time:

Only 38% of respondents in the TIME poll now support President Bush's decision to invade Iraq, down from 42% three months ago. A similar number believe that the new Iraqi government will succeed in forming a stable democracy, while 59% believe this is unlikely. Almost two-thirds (65%) of respondents disapprove of President Bush's handling of the war, while 54% believe he "deliberately misled" Americans in making his case for war — a figure that has increased by 6 points over the past year.

So, okay, my inclination has been to urge Democrats to demonstrate some political courage and simply state the bald truth: Invading Iraq was a bad idea, the president garnered support for the idea by lying a lot, and the mission there is not going to succeed. Since it turns out that this is actually what most people believe, though, it doesn't seem like it would even require too much courage. Just go out there and say it.

Let me note that even though Time and most media polls are representing the GOP's problems as Foley-induced, the Pew Center has conducted the only poll that's methodologically well-designed to measure the Foley Effect and they found it to be very modest -- Iraq, not Foley, is dragging the GOP down. All the more reason to keep talking about it.