Centerfield

In case you as clueless as me:

Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English - Cite This Source Main Entry: bogart1Part of Speech: vDefinition: to selfishly take or keep something; hogExample: She was drunk and bogarted attention at the block party.Etymology: probably from Humphrey Bogart, US actorUsage: slang; bogarted, bogarting
Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.6)
Copyright © 2003-2006 Lexico Publishing Group, LLC Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English - Cite This Source Main Entry: bogart2Part of Speech: vDefinition: to bully someone into giving something upExample: He tried to bogart his way in.Etymology: probably from Humphrey Bogart, US actor
Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.6)
Copyright © 2003-2006 Lexico Publishing Group, LLC

I'll take a stab at the Japan bit...just for fun though. IIRC, back in the early 90's there were quite a number of people who were very alarmed at the rate that Japanese businesses were buying up US property. I don't know that 31% of people actually thought that Japan would cause us to come to ruin because of that (surely some people did), but at the time we also had no real major threats visible on the horizon of the everyday Joe.

Most likely as well, a statistical/sampling fluctuation played a part in that number.

I don't think it reflects the stupidity of the populous quite as much as it reflects the stupidity of taking polls too seriously...

Yeah, I guessed the same thing about Japan. I remember by the late 90s all those books about us getting flattened by the japanese steamroller had been buck-a-book'd.

Yup. To bogart means to hog. I thought that had made its way into the vernacular. The expression I heard it in first was "don't bogart that joint..."

And apparently it's a song don't bogart that joint, and further, it was in Easy Rider if my source is correct.

See this.

I'd note all the errors there, but I don't have the time. Short: Don't confuse perception of direction with support. Especially don't confuse perceptions with reality! Don't believe any poll without seeing the actual datasets for better analysis--such as oversampling of subsets. [Pew is notorious for oversampling Democrats--any bets that the Dem count of the survey is at least five %age points higher than the GOP count?] And always read the actual questions asked before trying to figure out what it means, as the interpretations will often be wildly at variance.

Also check the lsurvey length--and ask yourself what kind of people will sit still for a lengthy survey as compared to a short one.

Here's another poll [PDF] from last week, which paints a somewhat different picture, using more precise questions.

For Presidential approval polling, it's wise to go direct to Rasmussen's rolling 3-night poll, which has been continuously conducted using the same methodology for the last six years.

Bogart always kept his cigarette firmly clamped and omnipresent in either his hand or his mouth. He would light a spare, but did not share...thus, to "bogart."

Did you read your Mother Jones while bogarting that joint?

"He would light a spare, but did not share...thus, to "bogart."

Polls measure the particular questions x current perceptions. Lots of things can effect the present Independent shift.

oink
oink

A question: Do we know the historical perspective/trend of the relationship between duration of a war and the public support for that war?

The poll Tully links is well worth review. Interesting questions asked, and interesting splits in the answers given.

More WTF?-caliber schizoprenia among the peole is in evidence there as well,,,things like 60% agreeing that Iraq will never be a stable democracy but 57% saying we ought to finish the job. This suggests to me that there's got to be 15 to 20% of people who don't connect their views of reality to what our policy ought to be. This fits nicely with the South Park rubric claiming that about 25% of Americans is retarded...

I dunno whether the the poll was of a subset of Americans who are very likely voters or not, so I don't know what to make of the fact that only 4% reported not voting. My guess is that some folks said that they voted for a candidate who they preferred but didn't bother to actually cast a vote for...

Al'Maliki pulling off the investigation into the rape before it could look at any physical evidence is a pretty bad sign.

If this keeps up, the bad cops will stay bad cops.

It's clear he's only marginally on board supporting the surge.

Jon,
It seems that at best, US strategy in Iraq will take a long time to show acceptable results as we face escalating advanced weapons. My previous links indicated water-borne IED, EFP, now the use the terror use of chemicals like chlorine, advanced anti-aircraft, anti-ship, anti-tank missiles, sniper rifles as well as hundreds of relatively easy to use materials. On another thread, I suggested a fall back position. Given the escalating pressure we must display to force a possible Iranian compromise and the growing chance of Lebanon flaring up as Syria arms, how can the administration counter both the de-funding effort in Congress and the growing domestic perception of the Iraq Effect linked above from Mother Jones?

Is there anything we can do that is both bold and doable? I wonder if American's even appreciate our effort to date.

There is some criticism about the poll to which Tully links, along the lines that the questions were poorly worded.

Not that I want to link anyone to WAPO blogs (nor exceed my link quota), but this is an interesting spin as well.

There is much confusion clouding the security discourse and the "Independent middle" is increasingly concerned about the "Iraq Effect" they anticipated in 2003 was a possible consequence of preventive mangling. With Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Kurdistan, Gulf, North Africa and other hotspots brewing or brewed, many feel (rightly or wrongly) that Iraq is thwarting security elsewhere in the region besides supplying considerable ground experiance for future terrorists and Jihadists as they look West, East, North and South.

The Democrats must worry that "hard" and "soft" pro-action positions are an exclusive Republican conversation. It is not even March 1 and Clinton and Obama already are locked in a struggle of "purity" v "electibility". The real showdown is Bill v Nutroots coming sometime this summer.

LOL, Mitch. I note that Greg Sargent doesn't publish his own questions that he used to elicit his sound bites, nor the complete interview he extracted them from. And ther rejoinder from the polling firm that did the poll is right on target. "At least we published our data."

I'll listen to Sargent when he publishes his complete interview--when he cherry-picks it for his ideologically preferred sound bites I'm unimpressed.

Well Mitch, you can always criticize the wording of the response choices in poll questions such as the ones that go "which statement best describes your views." But the sort of pushing and channeling that occurs when you ask those sorts of questions is inevitable. Since the only alternative is to not ask 'em, all you can really do is consider whether they seem more like a good faith effort or an obvious attempt to skew things. So like I said, you can always quarrel, but I didn't find them to be especially objectionable. So I didn't bother. If the composer really wanted to skew things, it'd been done fairly artfully. At a glance, I'm inclined to believe they were done decently.

It would be an easy matter for armchair critics such as ourselves to compose their own different set of response choices, but the channeling and pushing still would happen.

If there was any "deficit" in the study from my view, it would be that while it tried to get people to characterize the nature of their support or opposition, it didn't try to plumb the depth of those views, i.e., ask how uncertain they were, or how flexible, or how much patience they had with things. MY guess is that even among those who continue to support the Iraq war, there's a seriously waning patience, a "half foot out the door" feeling. Of course, such feelings would be subject to change if future events overtake us.

I tend to like 5 point scales that allow the expression of a middle ground, but pollsters usually want you to pick sides. Especially isf some special interest is paying the bills.The missing choice I'd have liked to have seen in there somewhere in the query of Iraq views would have been something like "while I appreciate the national security importance of establishing a democracy in Iraq and how the outcome will affect our anti-terrorist efforts, I am growing more and more skeptical that we can make democracy in Iraq happen."