I remember the country turning against the war, but did the country ever really support the war?
Democrats won control of Congress in 2006, in part because the catastrophic War On Terror™ turned voters against Bush and Republicans. At least that’s how I remember it.
This morning I read a newspaper column I wrote in November 2002 (13 months after the Afghanistan invasion, 5 months before the Iraq invasion). It was about public opinion polling and whether the then-pending invasion of Iraq actually had the support of the public.
Was the Iraq war ever popular with the American public? It depended on how pollsters asked the question. Me in 2002:
To witness first-hand how small wording changes can alter answers, try asking these two questions next you’re at a bar. Question #1: Do you enjoy having sex? Question #2: Do you enjoy having sex with me?”
I then share bits of a Pew Research Center poll from October 2002 showing that a majority of Americans favored the invasion in general, but a majority disapproved of an invasion if there were significant U.S. casualties or we proceeded without support from allies.
Put another way, the public approved of the hypothetical best-case scenario (an internationally supported invasion with few casualties) that was sold to them by Bush and credulous journalists, but the public disapproved of a go-it-alone invasion that killed and injured huge numbers of people, which is what countless people who were actually paying attention (ex. me!) warned was about to happen.
Americans didn’t really support what the war was going to be. They only supported the fantasy version.
Speaking of fantasies, check out how much a 3-bedroom house with a yard cost in East Atlanta in 2002. From the classifieds of the same November 2002 issue of Creative Loafing:
My column from that week, if you’re curious.
