With public opinion coalescing against the original decision to invade Iraq, the Times’ poll also found pessimism prevailed regarding the upcoming Iraqi elections: 61 percent of respondents believed the elections would either “lead to more violence” or “not have much effect”; and a full 70 percent thought that Iraqis were “not ready to govern their own country” without American help.

But while those polled are down on the occupation, the Times observes, “Americans are almost evenly divided over how long U.S. forces should stay in Iraq: 47% said they would like to see most of the troops out within a year, while 49% say they could support a longer deployment — including 37% who say the troops should remain ‘as long as it takes’ to secure and stabilize the country.”

But only 4 percent of those polled said they would support sending more troops.

“‘We are seeing lower support for the war, but I would have expected it to be even lower, given that the main rationale for the war — the weapons of mass destruction — turned out not to be there,’ said John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University who is an authority on wartime public opinion.

“‘Support for this war is now lower than support for the Vietnam War was at the Tet offensive,’ Mueller said, citing the 1968 battles that were a turning point in U.S. public opinion then. ‘But in Vietnam [after Tet], the war continued for several years, and many people continued to support it through enormous casualties.’”

Meanwhile, many Americans think the president’s $40 million inaugural bash is tacky. A full 75 percent said that “because of the costs of the war in Iraq and the tsunami disaster in Asia,” the Bush administration should scale back the celebration.

Now that the election is over, however, that threat appears to have suddenly receded. According to Ridge, most of the “chatter” about possible attacks has died down, leaving the officials confident that an attack won’t mar the inaugural revelry. This should come as good news to most Americans, whatever they might suspect about the motivations of earlier election-season warnings.

That said, an article in the most recent issue of Time reveals nostalgia at the magazine for those heady days when government officials regularly announced that Americans should brace themselves for a dirty bomb or nerve gas attack. Titled “Limousine Terror? — Fears of automotive mayhem as the Presidential inauguration nears,” the piece begins with a revelation: “As Washington gears up for the first Inaugural of the post-9/11 era, one potential security threat has emerged as a particular focus of concern: vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, or VBIEDS.”

According to Time’s reporting, a VBIED could be any vehicle laden with explosives (we formerly called those “car bombs,” but we have to congratulate Time on using “VBIED” instead — military jargon is snazzy, and suggests you know what you’re talking about). Such a bomb could be used to disrupt the inauguration, Time notes, and a document attributed to an al Qaida operative arrested in Britain last year suggests that a limousine would make a good delivery mechanism. “Barriers have been set up to block any vehicle bent on destruction,” the magazine concludes, and “authorities are on the alert.”

Terrorist plans to attack the inauguration with exploding stretch Humvees would make a gripping story, but there’s one problem: the inauguration “is not specifically mentioned” as a target, and there’s absolutely no sign that terrorists intend to use a limo — or anything else — to attack the festivities. And as for the recently erected security barriers, anyone who has visited the White House in recent years can tell you that the practice of blocking off the areas surrounding important government locations isn’t exactly novel.

In the absence of any new threat, it’s hard to see the justification for a lurid headline like “Limousine Terror?”; a more accurate title would be “Terrorists Could Potentially Use Car Bombs to Attack the Inauguration, but There’s No Evidence They’re Going To.” Obviously, though, the latter’s a little less effective at scaring the citizenry — and selling magazines.

“The funds for the Graham Williams Group’s services went exclusively toward the production and airtime of advertisements in which I described the law and encouraged viewers and listeners to call the Department’s toll-free information line. The funds covered those costs alone and nothing more.”

That, apparently, is how one politely cops to paying off a pundit. But an article in USA Today — which obtained a copy of the agreement between the two parties using a Freedom of Information Act request — shows that Paige’s explanation isn’t right. The contract between the Department of Education and Williams stipulated that he “comment regularly on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts’ and ‘encourage the producers’ of a cable TV program, America’s Black Forum, to do the same.” In other words, while Paige insists that the Department simply bought $240,000 worth of ads, the Department’s own contract clearly proves that it paid for a piece of Williams.

Meanwhile, the CEO of Ketchum Public Relations, the PR firm which arranged for the Williams contract, has published a column in PR Week insinuating that Williams may be far from the only commentator on the take:

“On the surface, Williams’ unusual role as both a pundit and information source — through his ad-production firm — would seem to blur the lines that once so clearly defined journalism and news organizations.

“Now, while our industry could never unanimously pinpoint the moment when this blurring began, every one of us would surely agree that the meshing grows with each passing day Infotainment goes head-to-head with edutainment, sportscasters double as product pitchmen, and paid political advisors double as paid political pundits.

“Though Ketchum is currently under the microscope, the PR industry at large is about to be viewed through a telescope. For starters, a public-interest group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests to 22 government agencies, including all cabinet agencies, requesting copies of all contracts with PR firms.”

If CCRE’s requests turn up half as much as Ray Kotcher’s op-ed suggests they might, more talking heads may roll. And if the Freedom of Information Act doesn’t do it, then maybe the FCC’s newly launched investigation will.

“Practically all the major donors have benefited from Bush administration policies, especially from corporate and individual tax cuts, deregulation and the new prescription drug benefit that is part of Medicare. Most also stand to boost profits further because of Bush’s second-term proposals, which include limiting medical malpractice suits, creating private investment accounts as part of Social Security and making a tax-code revision that is expected to reduce taxes on investments.

“Many donors are corporations and executives that are regulated by the federal government, dependent on government tax and spending policies, or both. At least 16 donors are from the finance industry, 14 are from the energy sector, six are real estate developers, and at least five are from both the health and telecommunications industries. The Washington Post Co. has pledged $100,000.”

That last line came as a surprise to War Room, particularly as the Post Co. isn’t listed on the donor page of the inaugural committee’s Web site. And while we couldn’t admire more the “bite the hand that feeds you” spirit that the Post’s reporters showed by including their parent corporation in an article on unseemly political contributions, we were a little curious as to why the Post was bankrolling the celebration in the first place.

According to Patrick Butler, vice president of the Washington Post Co., currying favor with the administration has nothing to do with it. Instead, the donation was made at the request of the Post’s advertising department, which was looking to secure 50 inaugural ball tickets for their clients. And although the tickets are only supposed to cost $150 apiece, they’re invitation only, and hard to get — unless somebody puts a little grease in the wheels. Thus the extra 85 grand above the tickets’ face value.

“People can buy sponsorships for whatever reason they want, but we bought ours just to get the tickets,” Butler told War Room. “That’s the beginning and the end of it.”

To be fair, this isn’t the first time the Post Co. has seen fit to get inaugural ball tickets for its advertising clients. “We’ve been doing it since 1993,” Butler says, though it was cheaper during the Clinton years — for the 1997 inauguration, they only had to shell out $15,000 to buy the tickets at face value.

“Believe me, it’s not the way we would prefer to do this. We would have hoped to have bought these tickets without being an official sponsor,” Butler says. “But it didn’t work out that way.” And despite the suspicious tone of the Post’s own reporting, he insists the Post Co. isn’t looking for favors: “We’re not doing any candlelight dinners.”

Still, at least one media expert has his doubts about the Post’s privilege. “I’m a little surprised,” said Mike Hoyt, executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review. “That seems like something a newspaper company would automatically want to keep an arm’s length from.”

When asked whether the current Social Security system would be able to “pay you a benefit when you retire,” a plurality of 50 percent said no. That answer is, of course, factually wrong, assuming that you’re planning on retiring before the 22nd century. (If you don’t trust Paul Krugman on that, just look at the Social Security Trust Fund’s 2004 report). But this misperception might explain why a full half of respondents thought the Social Security system needed “major changes” in the next couple of years; an additional 40 percent believed those “major changes” would need to take place within a decade.

While most Americans don’t seem to have a good grip on the budget fundamentals of social security, a solid majority of them know that they don’t want to change the program to include Bush’s “private accounts.” By a margin of 55-40, those surveyed thought that reducing guaranteed benefits to pay for private accounts was a “bad idea.”

Gallup also touched on the topic of treatment of detainees, and found that by and large, Americans oppose harsh methods of interrogation recently employed by the U.S. government. Solid majorities thought it was “wrong” to “[force] prisoners to remain naked and chained in uncomfortable positions in cold rooms for several hours,”[threaten] prisoners with dogs,” and “[strap] prisoners on boards and [force] their heads underwater until they think they are drowning.” That said, minorities of up to 30 percent think that such actions are “right.”