Bush gets Zarqawi poll bounce

Investor's Business Daily:

For one day at least, President Bush was more popular than he's been all year.

The president's lagging poll numbers got a swift boost from Thursday's news that U.S. warplanes had killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted-terrorist in Iraq.

Polling done on Thursday for the IBD/TIPP Presidential Leadership Index gave Bush a 44.2 rating, up from 39.1 in the prior days of June and 38.9 in May. The last time the Index reached this level was in December, when it hit 44.3.

...

There is more. This bounce suggest that at least some of the dissatisfaction over the Iraq policy is based on peoples unhappiness that we are not making more tangible progress in winning. Getting Zarqawi is an obvious sign of progress and if more progress is shown the approval numbers will be back above 50 percent. I have always maintained that the wrong question has been asked about the Iraq policy in these polls. The question should be, "Do you want to lose the war in Iraq?" For many anti war liberals the answer would be yes, but I do not think they would get a majority or anywhere close to one.

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