Ghod, it's like looking into a parallel universe. Who tells these people these things, and why do they still believe it?
On Iraq and Bush's Speech, a Sampling of the Public Pulse Finds Varying Beats
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER
ATLANTA, Sept. 8 — Dan Conaway is a trial lawyer, a Democrat and no supporter of President Bush. But when it comes to foreign policy, he places himself "somewhere between Bismarck and Winston Churchill." So he was cheered, he says, by the president's speech on Sunday night, especially when Mr. Bush made clear that the time had come to gain the help of other nations in bringing order to postwar Iraq.
"If we can stabilize Iraq," the 41-year-old Mr. Conaway said today at the Perimeter Mall, north of the city, "it means we'll have more influence over Iran, and less dependence on Saudi oil, which means we can deal harder with the Saudis, which 9/11 made clear we need to do."
By contrast, Jill Massa, 25, a headhunter and a Republican who likes the president, said that when it came to his handling of Iraq, she was becoming increasingly uncomfortable about the price tag. And, she said, his speech only made her more concerned.
"My question is, I understand we had to go get Saddam Hussein out," she said while eating lunch in Centennial Olympic Park, "but why is it our responsibility to spend $87 billion establishing their country? They need to do that on their own."
In their willingness to think across party lines, Mr. Conaway and Ms. Massa seemed the exceptions today. In and around Atlanta, the Democratic heart of the conservative South, a series of quick conversations with those people who said they had watched the president's speech suggested that he had changed few minds. Democrats by and large said they remained impatient to see the effort in Iraq come to an end, while Republicans generally said they remained foursquare behind the administration.
"Like he said, if we're not taking it to their front, they'd be taking it to ours," said James Tegl, 62, strolling across the town square in the solidly Republican suburb of Marietta with his wife and their 2-year-old grandson.
"I back him," Mr. Tegl said. "If he feels this is it, I'm with him. He's been a lot more up front about things than other presidents. And somebody said it'd cost a lot more to contain Saddam than it did to take him out now and rebuild Iraq. It's short money compared to what it would've cost otherwise, down the road."
In Marietta, the prevailing sentiment was that Mr. Bush's speech was an update on a war against terrorists that has made remarkable progress in just two years.
