NY Post claimed Sen. Clinton called for cap on U.S. troops to please "liberal base"
An January 18 New York Post article claimed that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) call for "a cap on the number of U.S. troops in Iraq" was part of "an effort to please her party's liberal base," suggesting that only a small minority of people -- the liberal base of the Democratic Party -- supports restricting the president's authority to send more troops to Iraq. But polling on the subject has demonstrated that support for congressional action to stop President Bush's troop increase goes beyond the Democratic Party's "liberal base."
According to a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll conducted January 13-16, 51 percent of Americans would like Congress "to try to block Bush from sending more troops to Iraq," while 41 percent held the opinion that "Congress should not attempt to stop Bush." Although 51 percent represents a very narrow majority, it exceeds any reasonable calculation of the size of the Democratic Party's "liberal base."
Similarly, a USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted January 12-14, found that 47 percent of respondents were in favor of "the Democrats in Congress taking active steps to block the deployment of more U.S. troops to Iraq" including "denying the funding needed to send the additional troops," while 51 percent opposed.
In addition, a poll conducted January 10-15 by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 61 percent of respondents "oppose Bush's plan to send more U.S. troops to Iraq," and, of those, 69 percent (or 43 percent of total respondents) believe that "Congress should try to block Bush's plan by withholding funding for the additional forces." That 43-percent support for congressional action to stop a troop increase came in a poll in which only 35 percent of respondents identified themselves as Democrats.
Also, according to pollingreport.com, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll taken January 11 asked the following question:
Congress may consider several different resolutions on President Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq. Some resolutions would take steps to prevent this, while other resolutions would express opposition to the plan, but not attempt to block it. Suppose Congress considers a resolution which would take specific steps designed to prevent the U.S. from sending more troops to Iraq. What would you want your members of Congress to do? Should they vote to allow the U.S. to send more troops to Iraq or vote to prevent the U.S. from sending more troops to Iraq?
Sixty-one percent of respondents answered "prevent," while only 36 percent answered "allow."
how about, ohh, I don't know...'to appease US?!?! The PEOPLE of America...?!?!
By way of Ian's logic... Hillary's base is the majority of American voters. That's pretty good.
This is smart politics, nothing more. Hillary needs to move to the left to win the Democrat vote. She doesn't really know what to do about voting for the war, and this is the result. Where is the misinformation??...this is accurate. Regardless what you think about Hillary, she is a good politician.
To please a 'liberal base'This is misinformation for two reasons, first it can easily be seen as pleasing the MAJORITY of the American people not the set known as liberals, and because he cannot read minds therefor his assigning some motive and making a claim which implys that it was not done because she believes is SHOULD be done is without merit.
Of course . . . it can't POSSIBLY have ANYTHING to do with the desire to see the troops brought home and ending further unecessary bloodshed . . . why, that would be COMPASSIONATE . . . and as we all know, only conservatives have that capability . . .
[sarcasm off]
{not to mention that a cap on US troops is the will of the majority of Americans as expressed at the most recent election - that's a pretty big "liberal base" . . .}