35% (Newsweek) + A Note About Yesterday's NSA Poll

The Chimp in Winter (Now a Spring of Discontent)

Another new historic low for a poll, with Newsweek reporting a slide to 35% (from 36% in late March). The poll, taken on May 11 and 12, also focused on NSA wiretapping and data mining:

President Bush tried to reassure the public this week that its privacy is “fiercely protected,” and that “we’re not mining or trolling through the personal lives of innocent Americans.” Nonetheless, Americans think the White House has overstepped its bounds: 57 percent said that in light of the NSA data-mining news and other executive actions, the Bush-Cheney Administration has “gone too far in expanding presidential power.” That compares to 38 percent who think the Administration’s actions are appropriate.

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According to the Newsweek poll, 73 percent of Democrats and 26 percent of Republicans think the NSA’s program is overly intrusive.

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The fracas over surveillance is yet another headache the Republicans didn’t need heading into the November midterm elections. Seventy-one percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country, and more than half—52 percent—say they would like the Democrats to win enough seats to take over Congress this November (only 35 percent want the Republicans to keep control). Looking ahead to the presidential race in 2008, more Americans said they would like to see a Democrat elected than a Republican—50 percent versus 31 percent. That, despite the fact that a majority of those polled don’t believe a Democrat would do any better than Bush is doing on a variety of issues.

The 57% who believe the BushCo Gang has overstepped its boundaries comes in contrast to a WaPo-ABC poll we noted yesterday that "found that 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort."

It's true that I find the WaPo poll troubling and the Newsweek poll more agreeable, it's still very early days for any polling to capture anything other than knee-jerk reactions to a story that we are still just learning about. Glenn Greenwald has a good post on polling taken after revelations last December about the NSA illegal wiretapping program:

When the NSA eavesdropping scandal was first disclosed, Rasmussen Reports quickly issued a blatantly flawed poll purporting to show that "Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States. " The question mentioned nothing about warrants. It mentioned nothing about FISA. And it specified that the Government would be eavesdropping only on conversations "between terrorism suspects."

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As the debate over the NSA scandal became more informed and more Americans understood the issues at stake, virtually every poll thereafter showed that a majority or plurality of Americans oppose warrantless eavesdropping and/or believe the President broke the law, and some even show that a plurality favors the Censure Resolution. Opinions change when people stand up and explain why what the Government is doing is wrong and dangerous, and Americans respect politicians who are willing to do that even when -- especially when -- they are not guaranteed by the consulting class ahead of time that they will win.