Mr. President, meet reality

Bush says "I ... don't believe most Americans want us just to get out now." He's wrong.

Published December 20, 2006 6:01PM (EST)

Earlier today, we were discussing the discrepancy between the president's conception of public opinion on Iraq and, you know, reality. At his press conference today, Bush made the same mistake he did in his interview with the Washington Post yesterday.

"I ... don't believe most Americans want us just to get out now," he said, and the White House even went so far as to highlight this statement, making it one of the key points included in a synopsis of the press conference sent to reporters. But, as we observed earlier, this just isn't true: in fact, 54 percent of Americans want us to get out of Iraq within a year; 21 percent want us to leave immediately. Only 33 percent want us to stay "as long as necessary."

Someone might want to tell the president.


By Alex Koppelman

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.

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