[Peace-discuss] NYT poll: Youth support war & Bush more than their elders

[C. G. Estabrook]

[It's worth remembering, too -- over against the myth of "college 
radicals" and the Vietnam war -- that in the 1960s support for the US 
government's war against Vietnam was directly (not inversely) 
proportional to years of formal education.  I.e., American education was 
doing its job: the more of it you had, the more likely you were to 
support what Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon were doing to SE Asia.  Mutatis 
mutandis, that's probably even more so today.  --CGE]

     The New York Times
     April 17, 2007
     On Polling
     Young People and the War in Iraq
     By JANET ELDER

     The younger generation is opposed to the war in Iraq, right? Wrong.
     Actually, they're divided on the war, far more so than their
     grandparents, according to a New York Times/CBS News Poll in March.
     Seems younger people are more supportive of the war and the
     president than any other age group.

     Forty-eight percent of Americans 18 to 29 years old said the United
     States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq,
     while 45 percent said the United States should have stayed out. That
     is in sharp contrast to the opinions of those 65 and older, who have
     lived through many other wars. Twenty eight percent of that age
     group said the United States did the right thing, while 67 percent
     said that the United States should have stayed out.

     This is nothing new, said John Mueller, author of "War, Presidents
     and Public Opinion," and a professor of political science at Ohio
     State University. "This is a pattern that is identical to what we
     saw in Korea and Vietnam, younger people are more likely to support
     what the president is doing," he said.

     A review of the March poll suggests Mr. Mueller has a point.
     Overall, 34 percent of Americans said they approved of the way the
     president was handling his job, and 58 percent disapproved. But
     younger Americans were more approving than older Americans. Forty
     percent of 18-29 year olds said Mr. Bush was doing a good job, while
     56 percent said he was not. While 29 percent of people 65 and older
     said they approved of the way Mr. Bush was handling his job as
     president, 62 percent said they did not.

     The nationwide telephone poll was conducted March 7-11 with 1,362
     adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three
     percentage points.

     A look back at the Vietnam years showed a similar divide between
     young and old. Older Americans were defined as 50 and older, but the
     comparison is still apt. In October 1968, when Hubert Humphrey,
     Richard Nixon and George Wallace were running for president, a
     Gallup poll found that about half, 52 percent, of people under the
     age of 30 supported the war in Vietnam. But among those 50 and
     older, 26 percent supported the war.

[For the rest, see
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/world/middleeast/19iran.html>.]