Comments on: Poll: Iraqis prefer life under Maliki to life under Saddam, 49%-26%

By: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate’s Cove

Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate’s Cove — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:46:21 +0000

[...] at Hot Air has an interesting poll: Maliki or Saddam? Check it out for the [...]

By: Hot Air » Blog Archive » Video: Maher bummed to hear that Iraqis don’t prefer life under Saddam

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 17:23:18 +0000

[...] the population that isn’t Sunni doesn’t pine for the Arab Stalin who tormented them. We already knew that, of course, and Maher probably does too but he can’t resist the zesty moral equivalence of [...]

By: Spinning Iraqi Polls at

Spinning Iraqi Polls at — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 05:03:39 +0000

[...] I found this post by Hot Air who creatively analyse, finesse and fill-in some of the blanks in the second poll. Regardless of poll spin, Americans are increasingly showing their displeasure with Bush’s war. [...]

By: Hot Air » Blog Archive » Poll: Shiites, Kurds glad U.S. invaded, Sunnis not so much

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 21:11:37 +0000

[...] I was going to cut video of Bush’s speech but it’s the same old song and people seemed to like that post I wrote about the Iraq poll over the weekend, so how about we mark the fourth anniversary with a little number-scanning instead? The data comes from the new ABC/BBC poll of Iraqis published today. I’m going to highlight some of the key results here, but I recommend flipping through it all. One thing these questions won’t show is how bad the trend is since November 2005 — and how good the trend was then compared to 2004. The numbers from ‘04 to ‘05 were up across the board; then came the Samarra bombing last February and everything lunged. If we’d been able somehow to stop those rat bastards before they did that, I wonder what the country would look like now. [...]

By: Yankeemom

Yankeemom — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 17:59:04 +0000

[...] Hot Air [...]

By: Yankeemom

Yankeemom — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 17:59:03 +0000

[...] Hot Air [...]

By: honora

honora — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 17:13:40 +0000

That surprised me too, until I remembered the average Iraqi family is probably hundreds of people.

TallDave on March 19, 2007 at 12:54 PM

If you think of all your siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and then all your spouse’s relatives–it’s pretty easy to get well over a hundred. And as you imply, the average Iraqi nuclear family is probably bigger than ours.

By: TallDave

TallDave — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:57:41 +0000

Good Lord, if this polls oversamples Sunni Arabs, what does the considerably more negative BBC poll (for which, afaict, ethnicity is not given) do?

By: TallDave

TallDave — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:54:16 +0000

Fully 26% of the people surveyed said they’d had a family member or relative murdered within the past three years.

That surprised me too, until I remembered the average Iraqi family is probably hundreds of people.

By: honora

honora — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:18:54 +0000

Neglected my comment, which on second thought should be readily apparent. Ummmm, cherries.

By: honora

honora — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:17:49 +0000

That “family member murdered” crap is BS. What a joke.

But the 49% preferring life under Maliki is actually damn good… the left can whine about not being a “clear majority” if they like…. but Bush would love to have 49% prefer him to Clinton, no?

I still fear the media and the Dems losing this for us back here at home by emboldening the enemy to keep killing civilians by promising them victory by “domestic divide and conquer”, but in reality, this, coupled with the millions who’ve proudly voted, etc. etc. is actually really great news… but again, VERY cautious optimism… because I know how powerful the media is.

RightWinged on March 18, 2007 at 12:41 AM

By: Three Good Posts at politburo diktat 2.0

Three Good Posts at politburo diktat 2.0 — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:44:38 +0000

[...] Allahpundit on that poll of Iraqis. It’s complex picture, something for everybody who has an axe to grind. If someone as fair-minded as Allahpundit won’t summarize the poll in a soundbite, neither will I. RTWT. [...]

By: Spinning Iraqi Polls «

Spinning Iraqi Polls « — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 01:21:07 +0000

[...] I found this post by Hot Air who helps identify some of the creative spin masquerading as real information in the second poll. [...]

By: Nonfactor

Nonfactor — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 23:29:42 +0000

I stayed home and watched Twelve Monkeys. Remember that movie? Ahhh, just gotta love a movie that actually has conservative elements to it.

One Angry Christian on March 18, 2007 at 4:11 PM

It’s what you read into it. Gilliam’s movies aren’t about a political slant, they’re about fantasy.

By: Mazztek

Mazztek — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 21:58:29 +0000

Somthing from quite a while ago.

iraqi War Winners and Losers:

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=25343 Fortunately there are many more winners in this war than losers. The Arab nations are rid of a regime that had not only given all Arabs a bad name but had acted as a center of conspiracy and aggression against many of them. There is not a single Arab leader today who would regret Saddam’s demise. All of Iraq’s neighbors could be included among the winners. Iran sees the end of a regime that provoked an eight-year war that claimed over a million lives. The toppling of Saddam also means the closure of anti-Iranian terrorist camps maintained by Saddam on Iraqi territory. The Baathist tyranny in Baghdad was like a time bomb that was bound to explode at some point.

By: One Angry Christian

One Angry Christian — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 20:11:59 +0000

I stayed home and watched Twelve Monkeys. Remember that movie? Ahhh, just gotta love a movie that actually has conservative elements to it.

By: Nonfactor

Nonfactor — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 19:29:04 +0000

Professor Blather on March 18, 2007 at 2:50 PM

Which will prove that you have the time to find people on the fringes? They exist on both sides, but I won’t criticize everyone on the right because of something some of their members believe.

By: Professor Blather

Professor Blather — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:50:45 +0000

Most people will agree that Saddam was a horrible guy, but to say that “lefties” somehow want Saddam back in power or want Iraqi’s to feel a certain way is absurd.

Nonfactor on March 18, 2007 at 4:06 AM

The Reigning King of Self-Parody strikes again!

“Absurd” does indeed aptly describe both you and your ideological community. Well done!

All right, a wager for the rest of you: if I took Captain Absurd here up on his little challenge and went looking for examples of lefties explicitly stating that they wish Saddam was in power, or that life was better under Saddam … how many examples could I find?

You don’t have to be exact. What’s your guess, plus or minus 10,000 or so?

I’ve got dibs on 340,000. If you let me Google for a day.

Winner gets to slap Nonfactor while the rest of us point and laugh at the absurdity of it all.

By: Entelechy

Entelechy — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:35:16 +0000

lefties will wonder why after four years we can’t get a clear majority to prefer life under American occupation to life under the Arab Stalin.

As a “leftie” I disagree.

Nonfactor on March 18, 2007 at 4:01 AM

As an independent I want to know how many polls were conducted under Saddam about the life-under-papa regime satisfaction/dissatisfaction…

By: Nonfactor

Nonfactor — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:29:10 +0000

More people are dying today because the world doesn’t give a damn about them. They say the do, may even think it, but they don’t.

tomas on March 18, 2007 at 9:12 AM

For a moment their I thought you were talking about Darfur.

You feel that way because liberals want to view all events as if they exist in a vacuum.

Thank you for trying to explain my “feelings,” but you’re wrong.

When a liberal says the war was a mistake, they are saying that they want Saddam back in power

Wrong again.

That begs the ridiculously obvious question of how were we supposed to get rid of him.

csdeven on March 18, 2007 at 9:30 AM

I know! It’s so hard to answer! How on Earth could the United States have gotten rid of a dictator in the Middle East?! I DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER!!!

By: darwin

darwin — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:19:25 +0000

In my opinion this can’t be interpreted as anything other than encouraging news. Of course, I’m sure the MSM will find ways to avoid this entirely.

By: infidel

infidel — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:28:47 +0000

csdeven on March 18, 2007 at 9:30 AM

Excellent post!

By: Liberalism rears its true face! « The Dystopian Philosopher

Liberalism rears its true face! « The Dystopian Philosopher — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:03:17 +0000

[...] Who are you protesting for? Certainly not the troops, because the indisputable vast majority of them have spines (an appendage you poor half-wits are desperately in need of) and want to complete their mission. And certainly not the Iraqi people, as the majoritarian consensus here as well demonstrates actual Iraqis, not spoiled progressive jackasses, prefer Iraq under Maliki over your good buddy Saddam. Plus the majority of them believe that the new security implementations will be successful, and that if the US were to withdraw it would bring only further bloodshed, all sentiments you revile. But what do they know, they’re only, pfft, Iraqis. You’ve got Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore, true paragons of the intellectual community. [...]

By: RW Wacko

RW Wacko — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 15:30:19 +0000

sorry for the crazy bolding

By: RW Wacko

RW Wacko — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 15:29:54 +0000

Any statisticians out there want to try?
Your suspicion is correct, AP. Imagine five families, fifty members per family, 250 people total (for simplicity) Imagine one person in "Family 1" was murdered a year back, no others murdered in either Family 1 or Families 2-5. That is 1 person known murdered out of 250 total people, or .4% (two/fifth of one percent). Now, if a polling organization asks all 250 people if anyone in their family has been murdered, all 50 people in Family 1 will say "yes" and all 200 people in Families 2-5 will say "no", so 20% of people will say they have lost a family member in the past year, or 50 times more than the % of people killed in the general population. To get the people killed in the general population you would need to know average size of family, and average # of people killed in each family.