There is a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg pollout today that shows that a majority of those with military conncetions -- active duty, vets and families -- disapprove of Bush and his war and only 36 percent believe the war was worth it.
The poll conducted Nov. 30-Dec. 3 also finds that 37 percent of military-family members approve of the job Bush is doing as president, a little more than the general population. The 2004 poll by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communications in Philadelphia found that twice as many military families approved of Bush's performance.
And it would also seem, at least from anecdotal evidence, that it goes beyond merely disliking Bush.
Kent Fletcher, an Iraq war veteran, says he enthusiastically voted for President George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Now, he is a registered Democrat who questions the need for the war, the way it has been managed and the treatment of returning veterans.
``Saddam Hussein wasn't a threat and the culmination of my career was that war and it wasn't necessary,'' says Fletcher, 32, a financial analyst in Bluffton, South Carolina, who served almost 10 years as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps.
A Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll shows that Fletcher's skepticism about the war reflects a growing disenchantment within the broader military community, long a bastion of support for the Bush administration and Republicans. Among active-duty military, veterans and their families, only 36 percent say it was worth going to war in Iraq. This compares with an Annenberg survey taken in 2004, one year after the invasion, which showed that 64 percent of service members and their families supported the war.
Fletcher, it would seem, is not only now a Democrat. he used to be one of those people who accused war critics of being unpatriotic and has since become a war critic himself:
In 2005, Fletcher, the Marine who switched party affiliations, published an editorial in the Huntington, West Virginia Herald-Dispatch newspaper scolding critics of Bush, who he said were also insulting the U.S. fighting forces.
``You don't have to spit on an Iraqi war veteran physically to spit on one metaphorically,'' he wrote. ``We are part and the same with the president's administration.''
Fletcher is now a member of Votevets.org, a group that promotes political candidates, particularly veterans who are critical of the Bush administration's Iraq war policies.
The MOE on the portion of the poll involving military families, BTW, is plus or minus 4 percent.