Trying to Spin the Truth Away

" 'The insurgency has gotten worse by almost all measures, with insurgent attacks at historically high levels,' said a senior Defense Department official who agreed to discuss the issue only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for attribution. 'The insurgency has more public support and is demonstrably more capable in numbers of people active and in its ability to direct violence than at any point in time.' . . .

"Taken together, the new assessments by the military and the intelligence community provide evidence that violence in Iraq is at its highest level yet. And they describe twin dangers facing the country: insurgent violence against Americans and Iraqi security forces . . . and the primarily sectarian violence seen in Iraqi-on-Iraqi attacks being aimed at civilians."

And consider this bombshell tossed at the end of that story: "[S]ome outside experts who have recently visited the White House said Bush administration officials were beginning to plan for the possibility that Iraq's democratically elected government might not survive.

" 'Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy,' said one military affairs expert who received an Iraq briefing at the White House last month and agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity.

" 'Everybody in the administration is being quite circumspect,' the expert said, 'but you can sense their own concern that this is drifting away from democracy.' "

Ooh. Another dribble.

As for the American Public

Thomas also asked Snow: "[I]s the President frustrated with the lack of American public support for Iraq? "

Snow's response was to denounce opinion polls as an influence on public policy -- while at the same time citing the one recent poll that contained some good news for Bush.

"As far as public opinion polls, I've addressed it many times. He's aware of polls, but he's also more keenly aware of his constitutional obligations, and he takes that first," Snow said.

Thomas: "He doesn't think he needs the support of the American people on the Iraqi endeavor?"

Snow: "I think what's going to happen, as people learn more and more -- as you saw just last week, there was an 11-point pivot just on the basis of the fact that things that people had not seen in terms of behind-the-scenes operations to thwart terror, suddenly said, oh, boy, we do have something -- boom, 11-point jump."

As for that 11-point jump, it came in one Newsweek poll , and it was just in one specific area: Bush's handling of terrorism and homeland security. It also wasn't 11 points in a weekend, it was 11 points in three months. Even according to the Newsweek poll, Bush's overall approval rating languished at 38 percent, and 62 percent of Americans disapproved of his handling of the situation in Iraq (which is what Thomas was asking about).