Popular Opinion and the War in Libya

According to this poll, popular support for the war in Libya is declining. When the armed forces of the United States first got involved, Americans tended to support the war by a narrow margin. Now they are opposed, again by a narrow margin. I think that popular opinions on wars tend to be more stable than what the polls generally indicate. In the war in Iraq, for example, the public's initial approval depended on assurances from the government that we would be out of there within six months.

When our nation goes to war, the president and his administration systematically underestimate the costs associated with the war in order to sell it to the American public. Every administration does this. The sad fact of the matter is that it is difficult for the people to adjust to this habit. Most of the time somewhat more than half of the people will have voted for the individual who currently holds office. Often they will hold the belief that this time things will be different. The tendency of presidents in the past to be less than candid is seen as a personal moral failure instead of a common response to the pressures of the office. This is part of the tendency to see political problems in personal rather than structural terms.