WASHINGTON, Nov 1: A faux pas by 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry energized President George Bush's Republicans six days before key Congressional elections, but a new poll on Wednesday showed voters still fault them for mismanaging the war in Iraq.
The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed voters warming again to Bush over his handling of the economy, with the New York Stock Exchange at record levels and gasoline prices down.
The Republican leader and his party also possibly stood to benefit from the announcement Tuesday that North Korea was prepared to rejoin talks on its nuclear program weeks after it tested a nuclear bomb.
But the Journal/NBC poll showed that voters are still largely rejecting the Republicans based on the Iraq war, with opposition Democrats favoured by 52 percent to 37 percent in the coming midterm legislative elections November 7.
While the poll was a national one and did not measure the mood by individual states and districts -- the basis for the elections next Tuesday -- it supported predictions that the Democrats are poised to capture one and perhaps both houses of Congress from Bush's Republicans.
The poll said Bush had recovered lost ground among the electorate for his handling of the economy: 46 percent approve his effort, up from 39 percent in June. Disapproval fell to 48 percent from 56 percent.
But on Iraq, a clear 54 percent of voters said the 2003 invasion to remove Saddam Hussein was not worth the cost in dollars and lives, the Journal reported. It was the highest percentage since the war began.
And 63 percent disapproved of Bush's handling of Iraq, compared to 61 percent in June.
By 37 percent to 22 percent, voters say they will be voting to send a signal of opposition to Mr. Bush rather than support, the Journal said.
An energized Bush went on the attack Tuesday after Senator Kerry's comments that Americans who neglect their education would get stuck in Iraq, with the president -- who defeated Kerry in the bitter 2004 race -- saying his erstwhile opponent had insulted US soldiers.
The senator's suggestion that the men and women of our military are somehow uneducated is insulting and it is shameful, Bush said at a raucous Republican rally in Georgia.
Looking to reinvigorate the party faithful ahead of the elections, Bush demanded Kerry apologize to the roughly 150,000 US troops now fighting the insurgency in Iraq.
The members of the United States military are plenty smart, and they are plenty brave, and the senator from Massachusetts owes them an apology, Bush said.
Kerry, who fought in the Vietnam War, hit back, saying his words were misinterpreted.
If anybody thinks that a veteran would somehow criticize more than 140,000 troops serving in Iraq and not the president and his people who put them there, they're crazy, he said at a news conference in Seattle, Washington.
“If anyone owes our troops in the field an apology, it is the president and his failed team and a Republican majority in the Congress that has been willing to rubber-stamp policies that have done injury to our troops and to their families,” said Kerry.—AFP
