The CBS/Gallup Poll You’ll Be Hearing About

CBS and Gallup have a poll out that is undoubtedly going to get a lot of media attention thanks to the pessimism on the Iraq war from the American people it seems to represent. But before the defeatist media gets carried away, let’s take a look at an interesting statement in the poll.
As Jim Geraghty notes:

Asked, “How much longer do you think the U.S. should have a significant number of troops in Iraq?”, 30 percent said “less than six months,” 25 percent said “six months to a year,” 25 percent said one to two years, and 15 percent said longer than two years. Two percent volunteered, “bring them all home now.”

Thats 65% of poll respondents calling for U.S. troops to stay in Iraq for at least another year, if not longer. Yet only 35% of poll respondents said that America can win in Iraq. So, why do so many Americans want to keep our troops in a losing situation in Iraq?
As I’ve pointed out with earlier polls like this which similar confused results, this represents just how muddled public opinion on the war really is.
It seems to me that opposing a war is an either/or proposition. What kind of a person opposes a war and then turns around and says that they support keeping our troops in harm’s way fighting a war they don’t approve of?
I think these muddled results are an indication of just how thoroughly mislead on Iraq many people are. I think most people support the concept of the mission in Iraq, yet because they are fed a daily diet of negativity and outright hostility toward the President and his foreign policies by the press many of them can’t help but feel that something must be wrong or going wrong with the war. Thus many poll respondents claim to oppose the war, yet support keeping our troops in Iraq.