Only 38% of respondents in the TIME poll now support President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, down from 42% three months ago. A similar number believe that the new Iraqi government will succeed in forming a stable democracy, while 59% believe this is unlikely.

cough..Downing Street Memo..cough

22% of Americans claim to be certain, literally certain that Jesus is going to come down out of the clouds sometime in the next 50 years. Another 22% think he probably will sometime in the next 50 years. That’s 44% of the electorate. Now of course, this belief does not exist in isolation. It’s not an accident that 44% of Americans also believe that the creator of the universe literally promised the land of Israel to the Jews. This is in his capacity as an omniscient real estate broker. And these beliefs are knit together with a myriad of other beliefs, infatuations with the end of history, with apocalyptic prophecy. And these beliefs have geopolitical consequences. This is not just what people believe on Sundays.

It’s actually not an exaggeration to say that something like half of us, something like 44% of the American population, if they turned on their television sets and saw that a mushroom cloud had replaced New York City, they would see a silver lining in this cloud because it would be a portent to them. It would presage that the best thing that is ever going to happen is about to happen, the return of Christ.

Almost four in ten, 39%, advocate that Muslims here should carry special I.D. That same number admit that they do hold some “prejudice” against Muslims. Forty-four percent say their religious views are too “extreme.”

In every case, Americans who actually know any Muslims are more sympathethic.

You know, sometimes, I don’t even know what country I am living in anymore. Special I.D.?! While we’re at it why don’t we make the Jews wear the Star of David too? You’ve got senators saying things like, “Every major Islamic leader, from heads of states to al-Qaida has openly identified the United States as their prime target and repeatedly promises the creation of a new global caliphate, where Islamic fascism will rule mankind.”

And the President saying, “This is the beginning of a long struggle against an ideology that is real and profound,” the president said. “It’s Islamo-fascism. It comes in different forms. They share the same tactics, which is to destroy people and things in order to create chaos in the hopes that their vision of the world becomes predominant in the Middle East.” Switch the world Islamo with Christian and they could say the same thing about us.

It isn’t even fascism.

Stanford University linguist Goeffrey Nunberg argues that fascism is not really the right word to describe this global terror network.
“There’s no historical or philosophical connection between al-Qaida and fascism,” says Nunberg, an expert on the language of politics. “They’re creepy people, but that doesn’t mean they’re fascist.”

But it sounds scary in election season, so who cares if it’s accurate, right?

Edit: Welcome Diggers!