Even before Bush's speech on Sunday and his press conference this morning, one polling group, AP-Ipsos, had already gone a long way toward making certain that Bush wins the spin war over his remarks and his plans for Iraq. They did this by making certain that they asked exactly the same question on withdrawal from Iraq that the White House would like to ask. Specifically, they group everyone who is favor of withdrawal as being in favor of total and immediate withdrawal, which, as I have been writing about for months now, is exactly the same distortion of the Democratic and progressive withdrawal position that Republicans have been trying to make for over six months now.

Here is the AP-Ipsos question:

"Should the United States keep troops in Iraq until the situation has stabilized, or should the United States bring its troops home from Iraq immediately?" Not shockingly, by a 57-36 margin, they discovered that a majority of the country is not favor of total and immediate withdrawal. Duh. That, however, does not tell the story on public opinion and withdrawal. A recent NBC poll shows how absurd the AP-Ipsos poll is, how just how much it skews public opinion on withdrawal. NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll conducted by the polling organizations of Peter Hart (D) and Bill McInturff (R). Dec. 9-12, 2005. Adults nationwide. RV = registered voters

"Do you think that the United States should maintain its current troop level in Iraq to help secure peace and stability, or should the United States reduce its number of troops now that Iraq has adopted a constitution?" N=1,006, MoE ± 3.1
Maintain level: 35%
Reduce level: 60%

"More specifically, do you think that we should have an immediate and orderly withdrawal of all troops from Iraq, or not?" N=1,006, MoE ± 3.1
Immediate: 27%
Not Immediate: 68%

Only 27% want an immediate withdrawal, but 60% want to reduce the number of troops in Iraq. The AP-Ipsos question thus hides the opinion of a full one-third of the American public that does not want an immediate withdrawal, but does want to begin at least partial withdrawal. This is the one-third of the public that Bush and Republicans want to be silenced, and want to be hidden from public view. This is the one-third of the public that, when combined with those in favor of immediate withdrawal, form nearly a super-majority in favor of withdrawal. This is a group that is roughly the same size as those in favor of "staying as long as it takes," but apparently don't even deserve to have their opinion polled. This is the group that holds the middle-ground on withdrawal that could actually lead to the congressional passage of a popular, successful withdrawal policy in Iraq.

This is the same one-third of the public that polling groups like AP-Ipsos are willfully hiding from public view, just like the Bush administration wants. Not surprisingly, because AP also happens to own a fairly well-known wire service, their distorted poll numbers have a huge impact on the spin on public sentiment on Iraq. For example, over the past two days, the following line has appeared in more than 830 news outlets across the country:

The AP-Ipsos poll found 57 percent of those surveyed said the US military should stay until Iraq is stabilized. A further 41 news outlets ran a story with the following headline:Poll: Majority Oppose Immediate Iraq Exit And another 48 outlets ran a story with the following sentence:Some 57 percent of those surveyed for an AP-Ipsos poll say troops should stay until Iraq is stabilized. So, even though poll after poll after poll shows that around 60% of the nation is in favor of withdrawal, the Associated Press tells the entire country that the opposite is the case.

By running a faulty poll question on Iraq and then distributing the distorted findings nationwide via their powerful wire service, the Associated Press is directly contributing to lengthening the war in Iraq. They are doing this against the wishes of the vast majority of the America public, and against all standards of journalistic integrity. It is not a stretch to argue that having such a powerful distribution service behind this distorted poll question is going a long way toward lessening the pressure on elected officials to pass binding withdrawal legislation. AP-Ipsos is responsible for lengthening the war in Iraq, and I for one am sick of just writing about this. It is time for an official campaign to get them and other polling firms to change their distorted questions. Any ideas you may have on how to conduct such a campaign are welcome in the comments.