BUSH’S RATINGS

At 57 percent, and rising slightly, this president, it’s important to remember, is strikingly popular for a mid-termer after two bad economic years and a difficult war. I’m bullish on the war (we can win if we want to); less bullish about the long-term economy (all that government and personal debt can’t go on for ever); but primarily impressed with this guy’s political strength. The one disturbing thing about this poll is that 64 percent say the casualty rate in this war is “unacceptable.” It’s a good thing that we are sensitive to such tragedy. It’s real and awful. At the same time, wars kill soldiers. To have invaded and occupied a country of 26 million, defended by the remnants of a brutal dictatorship with nothing to lose, and to have lost between 300 and 400 soldiers is, by historical standards, astonishing. If this is “unacceptable,” then we are moving into a situation in which any war is unacceptable. Which is, of course, what the bad guys out there want.