by John Nichols

QUESTION: Do you favor a withdrawal of all United States military from Iraq within the next six months?ANSWER: Yes 52% No 39% Undecided 9%

No, those are not particularly shocking numbers.

We have known for a long time that Americans favor the rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

What is interesting about these numbers is who they come from.

The Strategic Vision polling group asked 600 likely Iowa caucus goers the question in a survey conducted March 30-April 1, 2007.

To be more precise, the survey queried 600 likely Republican caucus goers.

George Bush can forget about rallying the nation behind his war.

At this point, Bush can't even rally the most engaged Republicans in the nation behind the continuation of quagmire.

Needless to say, when the president threatens Congress with a veto of an Iraq supplemental spending bill that includes soft benchmarks and a slow timeline for withdrawal, Democratic leaders would be wise to quote from the Bush lexicon: "Bring it on!"

Nothing the Congress is proposing is anywhere near as radical as the position now taken by grassroots Republicans in Iowa.

John Nichols' new book is THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson hails it as a "nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the 'heroic medicine' that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to 'reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.'"
Copyright © 2007 The Nation