Support Americans or support Bush?

In a recent Newsweek poll from March 17, they asked "3a. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bush is handling the situation in Iraq?." The results were;

Disapprove: 69%
Approve: 27%
Don't Know: 4%

That is the second highest disapproval rating, going all the way back to March 2005. So one has to wonder what Rep. Vito Fossella was thinking in backing Bush's plan and voting against the recent House Supplemental bill sending a withdraw date and benchmarks to show clear success by the Iraqis in handling this civil war. Only one of 15 Republicans in Democratic leaning districts, yes Staten Island is a Democratic leaning district based on PVI. Surely Iraq once again will be a campaign issue, whether Fossella tries to run from it again or not.

Interestingly Vito was joined by a Democratic member of Congress from NY in voting against the bill. While Vito believes sending troops to war is a way to support them, Rep. McNulty (D) who also voted against it had slightly differing reasons, actually supporting the troops;

“In October of 2002, I made a huge mistake in voting to give this President the authority to take military action in Iraq. I will not compound that error by voting to authorize this war’s continuation.”

“On the contrary, I will do all that is within my power to end this war, to bring our troops home, and to spare other families the pain that the McNulty family has endured every day since August 9th, 1970.”

Rep. McNulty lost his brother in Vietnam on that date, after the President at the time (Nixon) refused to face the reality of a horribly botched war.

Vito just put up another poster in his office to remind himself he still supports the troops!