On MSNBC, Viqueira asserted that political "center" supports Bush Iraq policy

On the February 1 edition of MSNBC's The Most, NBC News correspondent Mike Viqueira asserted that Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (CT) is "more towards the center, more aligned with the president on Iraq." Lieberman announced his support for President Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq in a January 15 press release, but supporting the president and his plan do not appear to be positions held by the "center," or the average voter, according to recent polling.

In a Newsweek poll conducted January 17-18, only 24 percent of respondents approve "the way Bush is handling ... [t]he situation in Iraq." In the same poll, 26 percent of respondents said they "strongly" or "moderately" favor Bush's "plan to increase the level of U.S. troops in Iraq by about 20,000," compared with 68 percent of respondents who "strongly" or "moderately" oppose the plan. In a January 13-16 Los Angeles Times poll, 33 percent of respondents said they "approve ... of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq" while 65 percent of respondents said they "disapprove." In that same poll, 36 percent of respondents said they "approve" of Bush's "plan to send almost an additional twenty-two thousand U.S. troops into Iraq" while 60 percent of respondents said they "disapprove."

From the February 1 edition of MSNBC's The Most:

ALISON STEWART [host]: The Senate found some sort of agreement --

VIQUEIRA: Right.

STEWART: -- on a resolution against the troop surge. Explain what happened here.

VIQUEIRA: Well, the bottom line is that there were two competing resolutions: one from a Republican, John Warner, and one from a Democrat, Joe Biden. Both of them would rebuke the president to one degree or another, saying that they disagree with the policy -- they oppose the policy of sending another 21,500 troops into Baghdad.

But both of them -- again, the bottom line was they both would have opposed the president. They have now been melded together. This strengthens the hand of those who in the Senate who want to send a message on this nonbinding resolution vote to the president opposing his policy, Alison. But it's still unclear -- we all know it takes 60 of 100 senators to get anything done, to move forward in the -- in the Senate. It's unclear whether they will have the 60 votes to move forward, even with this, in passing this nonbinding resolution.

Russ Feingold, on the lefthand side, says it doesn't go far enough. There are others like Joe Lieberman, more towards the center, more aligned with the president on Iraq, who says it goes too far. So we'll see what happens. It will all be debated next week, Alison.

—B.J.L.