Text 16407, 86 rader
Skriven 2005-12-02 20:17:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Bush ratings
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Bob will ignore this.

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,177333,00.html

12/01/05 FOX Poll: Bush Approval Rises; Public Split on Pre-War Intel 
Thursday, December 01, 2005
By Dana Blanton  

NEW YORK  — President George W. Bush's approval rating recovered a few 
points in the week's FOX News poll, though slightly more Americans still 
disapprove than approve of his job performance. On the issue of pre-Iraq 
war intelligence, roughly equal numbers of Americans think the president 
shared the best information available as think he intentionally misled 
the country. 

Today, 42 percent of Americans approve and 48 percent disapprove of the 
job President Bush is doing. Bush regained 6 percentage points from his 
standing earlier this month of 36 percent approval — the lowest approval 
of his presidency (November 8-9).

Much of this week's improvement can be attributed to increases in 
approval among Republicans (+ 6 percentage points), men (+ 8 points) and 
independents (+10 points).

"Some of the improvement may also be due to President Bush’s Wednesday 
speech on Iraq," comments Opinion Dynamics Chairman John Gorman. 
"Interviews finished before the speech show a 40 percent approval rate, 
while those done after the speech show 43 percent approval. If any of 
this is due to the speech it may very well be temporary."

The long-standing polarization between the parties continues, as there 
are almost as many Republicans that approve of the job Bush is doing (78 
percent), as there are Democrats that disapprove (80 percent). Among 
independents, 36 percent approve and 49 percent disapprove.

Overall, the public is sharply divided on whether before going to war 
President Bush knowingly gave the wrong impression about Iraq's weapons 
capabilities: 46 percent think the president gave Americans the best 
prewar intelligence available and 44 percent think he intentionally 
misled the country about the presence of weapons of mass destruction.

Here again, there are predictable partisan differences: 79 percent of 
Republicans think Bush gave Americans the best available prewar 
intelligence, while 72 percent of Democrats think he misled the country. 
Independents split, as 45 percent think Bush misled Americans and 43 
percent disagree.

In addition, some Americans think there are still weapons of mass 
destruction in Iraq. A 42 percent plurality thinks Iraq had weapons 
before the war and moved or destroyed them, while 28 percent think there 
were no WMD at all. Almost one in five (19 percent) think there are 
still WMD in Iraq.

The current results are almost unchanged from opinions about a year and 
a half ago. At that time, 44 percent said the weapons were moved or 
destroyed, 28 percent said Iraq did not have any such weapons and 22 
percent thought the weapons were still there (April 2004).

Opinion Dynamics Corporation conducted the national telephone poll of 
900 registered voters for FOX News on November 29-30.

In a speech to the Naval Academy this week, President Bush said the 
United States will "stay as long as necessary" in Iraq, and a recent FOX 
News poll found that a majority of Americans (55 percent) want U.S. 
troops to stay in Iraq and finish the job (Nov 8-9).

Even so, the new poll finds that by 47 percent to 41 percent, more 
Americans think there should be a publicly announced timetable for 
withdrawing troops than disagree.

By a 20 percentage point margin Americans disagree with Sen. John 
McCain's, R-Ariz., recent suggestion that more troops are needed to 
achieve success in Iraq, and more people think having U.S. troops in 
Iraq encourages (44 percent) rather than discourages (31 percent) 
terrorist attacks by the insurgents.

What would have happened if the United States had stayed out? Just over 
half of Americans (52 percent) think the world would be worse off and a 
59 percent majority thinks Iraq would be worse off, if the U.S. military 
had not taken action.


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