Public Softens Slightly on Bush

CBS/NY Times poll suggests that fewer Americans than ever back the war in Iraq

(NEWSER) - Six out of 10 Americans say the US should have stayed out of Iraq, a new CBS News/New York Times poll reports. And an all-time high of 76%—including a majority of Republicans—say the war is going badly. Americans support get-tough measures tying funding to progress, including a timetable for withdrawal, but don't believe funding should be cut off. More»

Critics say Friedman, others, are whitewashing the war

(NEWSER) - Scribes all over the place are using Sunday's election in Iraq to declare a victory in the US war there, and that has critics seething that they're just trying to justify their original support for a misguided and costly adventure. Several take aim at Tom Friedman for the column today in which he argues that while the war "should have and could have" been better executed, "George W. Bush's gut instinct that this region craved and needed democracy was always right." The price was high, he writes in the New York Times, but "democracy was never going to have a virgin birth in a place like Iraq." More»

Another man fires footwear of his own at Bush critic

(NEWSER) - The Iraqi journalist who famously chucked his shoes at George Bush got a taste of what it's like to be on the receiving end today. During a press conference in Paris to push his campaign for "victims of the US occupation," Muntadhar al-Zeidi had to duck when a critic stood up, yelled, "Here's another shoe for you," and let it fly. Like Bush, al-Zeidi managed to dodge successfully, reports AFP . More»

(NEWSER) - They called it Bush’s folly, a lost cause, even the worst foreign policy mistake in US history. “Even now, there are those who cannot bring themselves to utter the words ‘victory’ and ‘Iraq’ in the same sentence,” writes Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe. “But six years after the war began, it is ending in victory.” More»

Two-thirds of Americans support Afghanistan 'surge'

(NEWSER) - The 17,000 additional troops President Obama plans to send to Afghanistan will ship out with the support of two-thirds of Americans, a contrast to the public’s poor reception of George W. Bush’s Iraq surge, the Washington Post reports. Polls also show Obama’s troop increase has widespread backing: Four in 10 of those who say the war is not worth the cost nevertheless support the troop increase. More»