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Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 5/11/2007 5:14:38 PM
Title: Back to the drawing board
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
From DARREL PLANT: In his Australia Broadcasting Company interview, PBS's Jim Lehrer appears to be claiming that information from people opposed to the Iraq war resolution was difficult to find. He said: "Remember, 85% of the Congress in the United States, including the Democrats, favoured this war."

I have to question where he got that figure. All through the run-up to the war, there was a sizable -- if minority -- portion of the people in this country who opposed the war. The Iraq war resolution of October 2002, the defining point at which Congress could be said to have been judged on their favor for the war, was nowhere close to an 85% approval.

The vote in the House of Representatives was 296-133 with 3 not voting. In the Senate, the vote was 77-23.

That's 532 members of Congress, with 156 of them voting against the Iraq war resolution. My calculator says that's a little more than 29% voting against the resolution. If 85% of Congress approved of the war, that would seem to indicate some sort of voting fraud going on, right there under the Capitol dome.

Mr. Lehrer may need to go back to the drawing board for a new theory as to how much of the media managed to miss such a significant portion of the voice of the electorate. [Permalink]

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