Has the White House suddenly developed a respect for opinion polls? For opinion polls conducted on foreign soil? Partial respect for opinions expressed by foreign nationals? Or, respect for partial poll results? I’ll report, you decide.

Sunday night, President Bush quoted from a recent opinion poll to suggest that Iraqis were satisfied with the course of events in their country: “Seven in 10 Iraqis say their lives are going well, and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve even more in the year ahead.”

He was quoting almost verbatim from the findings of a poll in Iraqi that was sponsored jointly by ABC News, Time magazine and others news organizations. See:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/PollVault/story?id=1389228

We should be aware that the poll had findings that President Bush left out: Fewer than half of Iraqis -- 46% -- said their country was better off than it was before the war; half said it was wrong for the United States to invade in 2003. Two-thirds said they opposed the continued presence of U.S. troops, and almost half said they would like to see U.S. forces leave soon.