Why do most Americans hate America?

The consensus! It...burns!

While digging around my digital dainties drawer looking for a 2004 poll, I came across this remarkable, spanking new study of American political opinion by the estimable people at the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA).

What did they find?

“Bipartisan Public Consensus on Wide Range of Foreign Policy Issues”.

Holy mackeral, kids. As Peter O'Toole says in "The Lion in Winter",

"To these aged eyes, boy, that's what winning looks like".

I guess I must have missed that little item in the rising tide of news about Dubya’s Brand New Bag.

So the Man in the Blue Surge Suit will have his say tomorrow night. And unless he’s going to fall down, start spontaneously speaking in Churchillian glossolalia, and shock and awe us all with an Iron Burka Speech girded by a sudden gift for precision guided forensics on the order of Henry V’s St. Crispin's Day Address, this is the last speech of note of his career.

Well, until he quits.

Quits, crawls into a Midland titty bar, and spends the rest of his days raging drunk and whining about how Nancy Pelosi and the internets lost Iraq.

That speech will be one for the ages, but until then he has tomorrow night to re-brand a disaster that he has already spent the last three years using all the power of his Imperial Presidency choking down our throats until our national gag reflex will not allow one more bite.

So unless Dubya’s marketing plan for his New Huế Forward involves promising unlimited free pussy, Porches, and punkin’ pie to every man in America, America has already test-driven this shitwagon and wants no part of it. (Sorry ladies; his faith keeps him from promising you anything but the opportunity to submit obediently to your Christopath husbands and dutifully breed Christopath babies.)

Because in droves people are now blowing right on past that smelly, Lieberman/McCain tar pit of fake centrism and Friedmanic “One more shot for six more months” bullshit.

After a steady diet of criminal incompetence wrapped in smirking, transparent lies, citizens in huge numbers are showing up starved for a little truth and a little reality.

The November up-ending of the GOP Snake Oil Wagon was not primarily about meth smoking, rent-boi-ass-matadoring Evangelicals, although that helped. Not about a perp conga-line a block long composed entirely of shrill, lifetime members of the Party of Personal Responsibility. Not just about the Macaca hitting the fan.

Not just about an overpowering, basal hypocrisy that rots in the bones of modern, self-righteous Republicans.

It was about the war.

How do I know?

Because I can read a poll.

The whole report here.

Some big, nutritious bites are [emphasis added]…

Majorities of Both Parties Agree on How to Deal with Iraq, Iran, Nuclear Proliferation, Climate Change and Other Issues

…
Among members of the U.S. public, however, there is broad bipartisan consensus about how U.S. foreign policy should be conducted. A wide ranging analysis by WorldPublicOpinion.org of polls from numerous organizations reveals substantial agreement across party lines on many of the most contentious issues facing policymakers today. Not only do overwhelming majorities of Democrats and Republicans favor a bipartisan approach to foreign affairs in general, they also agree on specific policies to address problems ranging from the turmoil in the Middle East to nuclear proliferation to global warming.

And Americans support the key recommendations of the Iraq Study Group regarding the withdrawal of U.S. troops and talking with Iran and Syria.

This study includes a newly-released poll (conducted Dec. 6-11) and other recent surveys by WorldPublicOpinion.org/Knowledge Networks. In addition, it analyzes polls by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and other organizations.

…

The following are some examples of areas where there is bipartisan consensus:

The War in Iraq

• WPO’s new December poll finds that majorities favor withdrawing almost all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by 2008 (Republicans 62%, Democrats 88%) and that they believe the U.S. government should clearly state it does not want permanent bases there (Republicans 65%, Democrats 81%).

• Americans support talking with Iran about the problems in Iraq (Republicans 72%, Democrats 81%) and also talking with Syria (Republicans 72%, Democrats 82%).

• Large majorities are in favor of holding an international conference to discuss how to stabilize Iraq (Republicans 79%, Democrats 80%).

Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions

• Americans from both parties think the U.S. government should build better relations with the Iranian government rather than try to change its behavior through implied military threats (Republicans 56%, Democrats 88%).

Majorities also would support a deal allowing Iran to enrich uranium at the very low levels needed for nuclear energy production provided that U.N. inspectors were given full access to nuclear energy facilities (Republicans 53%, Democrats 62%).

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

• WPO’s December poll shows that Americans believe the United States should “not take either side” in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian territories. (Republicans 58%, Democrats 80%)

North Korean Nuclear Threat

• Majorities in both parties think the United States should offer to give North Korea security guarantees (Republicans 61%, Democrats 82%) if the government in Pyongyang is willing to eliminate its nuclear weapons

Protecting the Global Environment

• Republicans and Democrats favor legislation limiting U.S. emissions of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming (Republicans 61%, Democrats 82%).

• Majorities in both parties favor requiring car makers to increase fuel efficiency even if it increases the cost of owning a car (Republicans 71%, Democrats, 86%).

Defense Spending

• Bipartisan majorities believe government spending on defense should either be kept at present levels or scaled back (Republicans 61%, Democrats 83%)

• Given the opportunity to balance the foreign affairs budget, members of both parties favor non-military over military programs. On average, Republicans cut defense spending $110 billion and Democrats slash it by $264 billion.

On balance, game over. The numbers speak for themselves and there is nothing more to limn, except maybe this:

“Steven Kull, editor of WorldPublicOpinion.org, said the study showed “sometimes it is easier for the public to find common ground than it is for politicians.”

“Should Democrats and Republicans in government aspire to find common ground on foreign policy the American public can provide them with guidance on a wide range of international issues,” Kull said.

Someone should tell Mr. Kull that it is time to switch off his Media Wingnut Compensator. That acquired reflex referenced here in this splendid rant by David Roberts over at HuffPo.

…
The same dynamic plays out on virtually every issue: there's the virulent far-right position, funded by deep-pocketed reactionaries and pushed by talk radio, an enormous network of mutually reinforcing conservative pundits in every major media outlet, an entire cable news network (three now, really), and numerous powerful politicians in leadership positions in every branch of government. Then there's the avowedly liberal position, represented by some obscure professor or a guy in the comment section of a blog or a random placard at a protest. Then there's the "centrist" position, which is the far-right position with the edges rubbed off.

How does one establish oneself as a "centrist"? Why, by bashing the dirty hippies. After all, if you bash the virulent reactionaries, you're criticizing "real Americans" and the heartland and the baby Jesus. Everybody positions themselves by way of their distance from the -- at this point largely mythical -- dirty hippie. There's no faster route to media exposure for someone on the left that to spend every minute of the day criticizing other people on the left. Mickey Kaus. Joe Klein. Richard Cohen. Joe Lieberman. The list goes on and on.

…
Well. We see how the war has gone. It's a cataclysmic disaster by every conceivable metric. The serious people were wrong about everything. Literally everything. The dirty hippies -- the great masses of the public and the very few public figures (Feingold, Gore, Kucinich) who stood with them -- were right. The war went horribly wrong for just the reasons they said it would.

So what's the dynamic now amidst the Beltway chattering classes? Where's the center? Why, it's still in the exact same place! The people who advocated for war, and who advocate for more war, and who were wrong about everything, are still the "serious" people. The people who advocated against this fiasco, and are advocating for ending it, and who were right about everything, are still the dirty hippies who never show up on cable news or in major media op-eds. Expeditious withdrawal is a fringe leftist position, despite being supported by a clear majority of the country.

In other words, the "center" has become utterly detached from facts, substance, or majority opinion. It's an insular, self-sustaining myth, all about the vanity and egos of powerful people in the Beltway clusterfuck. It's about them, their self-flattery, their exclusive club, not Iraq. For a truly parodic example of this dynamic and its incredible staying power, check out Joe Klein's blog post, wherein he informs us that OK, the dirty hippies were right about Iraq, but they still sound silly and their opponents are still more "serious." One can only marvel.
…

Could not have said it better myself and so as I commend the entire, lovely thing to your attention I only add one thing.

Someone please inform Mr. Kull -- who I am sure is an otherwise laudable person -- that his wish that “Democrats and Republicans in government aspire to find common ground” is just silly.

Not one of those positions cited in his own poll is the product of a mealy Broderian median between two utterly imaginary and equally and oppositely “extreme” positions. If anything, some of them have been watered down by a compromise between Left and Center Left, but the Right has shit-all to do with any of it.

Virtually every one of the positions cited in his own poll is comfortably at home deep in bluest Dirty Hippyville.

The Center, Mr. Kull, is now officially the Left.

And the Right is now officially the Dirty Fucknozzle Fringe. Which -- HINT HINT -- might have something to do with why they spend such an insane amount of time, ink, money and bandwidth focusing obsessively on gays, flags, Jebus and snowflake babies instead of on , y'know, actual issues.

But beyond that crucial correction your work is top-notch.