El Opinador Compulsivo

Semana difícil para los odiadores profesionales de Bush:

Worldwide Muslim support for homicide bombing, according to a recent Pew Global Attitudes survey, shows a dramatic decline. In Lebanon, in 2002, 74 percent of the population agreed that homicide bombings were "often" or "sometimes justified." Now only 34 percent feel this way. Support in Pakistan dropped from 33 percent to 9 percent. Similar jaw-dropping declines were found in Bangladesh and Indonesia. In seven of the eight Muslim countries surveyed, support for homicide bombings declined.

How about some love for Bush, who, after all, now seems, at least a bit, like a uniter, not a divider?

More "bad" news.

"Support for Initial Invasion Has Risen, Poll Shows," ran the headline in a major American newspaper. Support for the war, at 35 percent in May, now registers at 42 percent, a gain of 20 percent. The next day, the newspaper explained on its website, "The war in Iraq is the single most important ongoing news story right now. Public opinion about the war is a critical part of that story. That's why when we had a poll finding about the war that we could not explain, we went back and did another poll on the very same subject. We wanted to make sure we had gotten it right."

But stunned by the poll results, the paper ran a second poll to confirm the results. Its explanation: "The July numbers represented a change. It was counterintuitive." Apparently, so counterintuitive that, after calling the Iraq war "the single most important ongoing news story," the paper reported the uptick in support for the war on page A-9.