GOP Sleight Of Hand/Poll

How intellectually bereft are Republicans? Over at the National Review, Cliff May cites some polling data to indicate that the public opposes the Democratic position on Iraq.

Vox Populi [Cliff May]
Some interesting polling results in recent days. For example:

According to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, 61% of Americans oppose “denying the funding needed to send any additional U.S. troops to Iraq,” and opposition is up from 58% in February. (3/23-25, 2007).

Because I know Republicans tend to distort things, I decided to look at the Gallup Poll myself. Gallup's polling memo seemed to be very different than Cliff's version. Here are some key points.

2. A majority of Americans say it was a mistake for the United States to have become involved in Iraq ...

3. Americans perceive that the war is not going well for the United States ...

4. Americans do not believe the troop surge is having a positive effect ...

5. Americans perceive that the benefits of winning the war do not outweigh the costs involved.

6. Most Americans support a timetable for removing troops from Iraq within the next year, but not immediate withdrawal.

Despite their overall negativity about the war, only about one in five Americans favor an immediate withdrawal of troops. Many of the rest support a gradual withdrawal of troops, preferably within a year. The majority of Americans do not favor an open-ended commitment of troops in Iraq.

8. Democrats are better positioned than the Republicans on handling the issue of Iraq. (emphasis mine)

May's bit of polling data was number 7 in a list of 10 in the Gallup memo. As you can see, the poll shows that the public supports the Democratic perspective on the issue, not the Republican perspective. Maybe Cliff didn't read the whole poll, or maybe this newer data, or maybe, just maybe, Cliff cherry picked his data to distort the polls finding (and point number 8 explicitly rebuts his implication). Either way, instead of challenging Glenn Greenwald to publish this data (as Cliff did in his piece), I challenge Cliff to publish the whole poll over at NRO.