# Posted 9:54 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND STATISTICS: Impressively, both WaPo/ABC and CNN/USA Today/Gallup produced overnight polls gauging America's response to Powell's speech.

Unfortunately, neither Gallup nor the Washington Post has any ideas what its numbers mean. According to Gallup, its poll "suggests that the speech had a limited impact". It backs up that position by noting that 81% of those interviewed did not change their position on the war because of Powell's speech. A more intelligent comment might have been that having 19% of Americans change their views on a major issue because of a single speech is an event of historic proportions.

As Gallup's numbers show, support for an invasion rose from 50 to 57 percent, while opposition fell from 22 to 15 percent. While the unsure category stayed about the same (28 down to 26), that stability masks the fact that a significant percentage of unsures have decided to support the war, while an equally significant percentage of opponents are now unsure of their position.

What neither Gallup nor a WaPo storyabout the polls points out is how remarkable it is that both Bush's State of the Union speech and Powell's UN address significantly increased support for an invasion. This sort of double-bounce has almost no historical precedents.

A general rule of thumb is that a major televised speech by the President leads to a short-term increase support for his views. That a speech by a cabinet member could have a similar effect is remarkable in its own right. The fact that the cabinet member's speech was only a follow up to an earlier presidential address makes its impact all the more remarkable.

Is there any way to account for this kind of anomaly? Absolutely. Very few presidential addresses are focused on courtroom-style issues of guilt, innocence and evidence. But in this case, Bush laid out a standard for judging evidence of Iraqi weapons development while Powell followed up with the evidence itself.

Since the resultant change in public opinion reflects a public assessment of evidence rather than a response to presidential charisma, there is every reason to believe that this change will be permanent.

Another major finding which both Gallup and the WaPo failed to report is that Powell's speech dispelled Americans' doubts about whether Saddam is cooperating and whether he has chem-bio weapons. In a poll taken before Powell's speech, around half of all Americans thought that Saddam has outlawed weapons and is hiding them from the inspectors.

According to last night's WaPo/ABC poll, more than 70% of Americans believe Saddam has weapons and is hiding them. According to Gallup, 60%+ believe that Powell made a "very strong" case for Iraq having weapons and hiding them while another 20%+ believe he made a fairly strong case. In light of the fact that just a few weeks ago 70% of Americans thought the administration needed to publicly present evidence of Iraqi violations, the new numbers represent a tidal wave of support for the administration.

Back then, 70% also supported giving the inspectors a few months or more to continue their work. But according to the WaPo/ABC poll, 59% of Americans think the inspectors should now have a few weeks or less.

The one issue on which America remains (somewhat) divided is whether the US should invade even without UN support. Two months ago, the split 37-58 against. Now the split is 49-46 in favor. That change reprsents the combined effects of Bush's speech, Powell's speech and the fact that most of Europe now supports an invasion.

But what is hard to figure out is why 46% still want UN support even if 75%+ believe that clear evidence of Iraqi violations constitutes a legimitate cause for war. Those numbers just don't add up.

My guess is that most Americans take it for granted that UN support will be forthcoming now that there is an iron-clad case against Iraq. But if the UN doesn't get on board, the American public may turn against it, and that turn may last a lot, lot longer than the war in Iraq.

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