The new Rasmussen poll is also showing the same numbers so it cant be just noise.

Im a bit surprised by those numbers though.

My guess is that it has something to do with last months U.S casualty being way down in compare to previous months so this could've been seen as a measure bar to the public on whether the surge is working.

Perhaps Republican respondents are rallying to Bush?

Hmm, I might be more confident about its being statistical noise if Bush's approval rating weren't seeing a slight uptick as well.

regime and his immigration bill.  In this country with our fifteen minute attention span, that's over.  The rightwingers are now into the fold and cheering on the war.

If there is really some sort of stability on the ground, the number will improve.

George W. Bush is not going to pull out, that's for sure. With left wing of keeps on pushing presidential candidates to the left, I am wondering what will happen if Iraq situation indeed improves next year?

To bet your election success on the failure of Iraq war is as risky as to bet it on the success of Iraq war.

I'm wondering how hard liberal bloggers will keep on pushing on democratic senators and congress men/women if these numbers keep on climbing?

Just my two cents.

Who cares, if support for the war goes above 45% I might care. But right now... the people who think things are improving in Iraq don't really matter.  And even if things are improving what difference would it make? Things are never going to improve enough unless we put in 1 or 2 million troupes, which we certainly don't have...

When I read about this first thing this morning I was perplexed at first. As the day drew on I came to the decision that this is a fluke. The war is not going well and our Democratic candidates are fighting over lobbyists. It's stupid. I do not believe that the American public supports this war.

If you listen to the radio, NPR or such, or read the papers NYT...WaPo you will 'realize' that the 'Surge is  Working' is the news of the day.

Did anyone here really think the corporatist liars of the media would suddenly start telling the truth?

They are not and so the polling shows.

I'm not surprised.

They've been putting a full-court press on hyping the surge--not only Bush, but the shills in the Pentagon and Congress too.

I'd expect an uptick, just like there was an uptick after they (allegedly) turned power over, had elections or any number of other "turning points."

It doesn't matter. The mission was doomed from the bigging and Bush is too incompetent to turn a bad plan into a winning one. (Kerry might have turned it around, with a little luck.)

I wouldn't hire Bush to haul my garbage. He will fail. He always fails.

I keep wondering if the American people are that dumb. That's the only thing I could think of.  Either that, or the those polls are manipulated to reflect a political position, mostly the administration's.

Yes the American people are that dumb and the only reason bush's numbers dropped was because of immigration not because of iraq in that time period where they dropped the lowest. Republicans don't like illegal aliens being given amnesty

This isn't surprising at all. Bush has tried to turn the whole Iraq war into a battle against Al Qaeda, and so he's able to point to successes in Anbar where Sunni insurgents have turned against Al Qaeda.  

The problem with this argument, of course, is that while many Sunnis have turned against Al Qaeda, they haven't turned toward the Shi'ite-led government. The tactical victory in isolating AQI in Anbar has helped bolster support for the surge among those Americans who don't pay much attention to the larger picture there. The fundamental dynamics of the Iraqi civil war are the same as before. Sunnis are still killing Shi'ites and Shi'ites are still killing Sunnis. Shi'ites think they should run the government as they wish and Sunnis refuse to accept their status as minorities.

This is why the political failures in Iraq are so important, and so devastating to Bush. Petraeus and Gates have made a big stink about the primacy of Iraqi politics in solving the general crisis. Neither Petraeus nor Gates can or will back away from those statements, so the utter failure of Iraq's Parliament to solve any of the big issues - and the Sunnis to even stay in the government - will play a big role in the September report. It's for these reasons, BTW, that Crocker and the White House are trying to downplay the importance of these political benchmarks. But nobody else in Washington - in either party - will let them get away with it. After all, it's one thing to blast a military policy, and another to blast a bunch of self-interested politicians in another country for failing to get their act together.

So I wouldn't sweat the uptick in support for the surge. I think it's genuine, but it's based on a short-sighted and misguided political strategy from the White House to base everything on Al Qaeda. Reality will haunt Bush again.

I don't care about polls and some mythical support for the war. This war is a crime no matter what its current popularity.

Get the Hell out, now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A major problem, as usual, is that the Democrats let Bush get away with his misleading, often utterly false, propaganda. He likes to emphasize occasional temporary gains on the ground. But what really counts is what the Iraq leaders are doing, not making peace with each other and building their country, but fighting each other more and more. This should be emphasized. Why aren't we? For more discussion of this see my blog
Science blog
impunv.wordpress.com
or
impunv.blogspot.com

Political blog
randomabsurdities.wordpress.com

It's not statistical noise -- it's the result of deliberate propaganda from Limbaugh, Hannity, and the rest that the surge is making marginal improvements in the military situation, even if the political situation is worsening.

Why the continued support for withdrawing by next April?  Even Republican voters are tired of the war.   Some are hoping that the surge stabilizes things enough that we can withdraw, seemingly unaware that the neocons plan to continue the occupation indefinitely.