Citing a new New York Times/CBS News poll, a December 8 Times article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported that “the idea of a quick pullout does not seem to be a winner with voters,” referring to Rep. John P. Murtha's (D-PA) plan to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq. The Times/CBS poll, however, asked respondents to indicate whether they would vote for their representative if he or she “called for immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.” This question does not address Murtha's plan, which calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq “at the earliest practicable date,” which he estimated at a press conference to be six months.

The Times/CBS poll was conducted December 2-6, with a +/-3 percent margin of error.

From Stolberg's December 8 Times article:

In the House, Democrats met in a closed session to listen to lawmakers' proposals, including Representative John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat whose speech last month calling for the speedy withdrawal of troops set off a debate over the course of the war. But they emerged without a consensus.

Mr. Murtha said later that his office was flooded with 16,000 calls after his speech, 14,000 of them supporting his idea to redeploy troops outside Iraq, possibly as soon as within six months, and send them back only to combat a threat that affected the United States or its allies.

[...]

The proposal has deeply divided Democrats. Their House leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, supports it. Their whip, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, is opposed.

[...]

Democratic divisions on national security are nothing new. They date at least from the Vietnam War. But with President Bush's popularity down, Democrats sense a good opportunity to pick up House and Senate seats next year. Although they take credit for injecting the idea of troop withdrawal in the debate, the idea of a quick pullout does not seem to be a winner with voters.

A new poll by The New York Times and CBS News finds that most Americans agreed there should be a timetable to withdraw troops. But 36 percent said that if their representative called for immediate withdrawal, they would be less inclined to vote to re-elect him in November. Twenty-one percent said such a request would make them more likely to vote for a candidate; 40 percent said it would have no effect.

But as Media Matters for America has documented, neither Murtha's proposal, nor that of any other prominent Democrat, calls for an “immediate withdrawal.” At a November 17 press conference, Murtha described his resolution (House Joint Resolution 73) as an “immediate redeployment of U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces to create a quick reaction force in the region, to create an over-the-horizon presence of Marines, and to diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq.” Asked by a reporter “how long that would be,” Murtha responded, "[Y]ou have to do it in a very consistent way, but I think six months would be a reasonable time to get them out of there." The resolution Murtha put before the House stated that American forces “be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.” As such, poll data indicating how voters would react to a call for “immediate withdrawal” of U.S. troops is not applicable to the proposal put forth by Murtha and endorsed by some of his colleagues. Media Matters noted that there apparently has been no recent polling that asked respondents whether they support withdrawing troops within six months, or “at the earliest practicable date.”

Notably, the Times ignored more relevant data contained within the poll that suggests a majority of Americans approve of a timetable for withdrawal, which several Democrats have proposed. When asked: “Should the U.S. set timetable for troop withdrawal,” 58 percent of respondents said “yes,” while 39 percent said “no.”

As Media Matters documented, a number of conservatives in the media distorted Murtha's troop withdrawal plan by conflating it with a Republican counter-resolution (House Resolution 571), which stated that “the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.”