Zogby Poll: Amers Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
[See original story at Live Journal for more links-NYTransfer]
sent by Don Stacey
Live Journal - Jan 13, 2006

http://www.livejournal.com/users/mparent7777/5619907.html

For Immediate Release: January 16, 2006
Zogby Poll: Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping
By Bob Fertik

New Zogby Poll Shows
Majority of Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping

By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to impeach President

Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval,
according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a
grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of
President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

The poll was conducted by Zogby International, the highly-regarded
non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,216 U.S. adults
from January 9-12.

The poll found that 52% agreed with the statement:

"If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of

a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding

him accountable through impeachment."

43% disagreed, and 6% said they didn't know or declined to answer. The
poll has a +/- 2.9% margin of error.

"The American people are not buying Bush's outrageous claim that he has

the power to wiretap American citizens without a warrant. Americans
believe terrorism can be fought without turning our own government into

Big Brother," said AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder Bob Fertik.

"Next weeks' Senate hearings on White House wiretapping could be as
dramatic as the Watergate hearings in 1973. A majority of Americans
have
already decided Bush committed an impeachable offense, yet we have only

seen the tip of the iceberg. If Bush ordered warrantless wiretapping
long before the terrorist attack on 9/11 - which was first reported in
Truthout on Friday - then Americans will realize that George Bush came
into office determined to shred the Constitution and take away our
rights," Fertik said.

Impeachment Supported by Majorities of Many Groups

Responses to the Zogby poll varied by political party affiliation: 76%
of Democrats favored impeachment, compared to 50% of Independents and
29% of Republicans.

Responses also varied by age, sex, race, and religion. 70% of those
18-29 favored impeachment, 51% of those 31-49, 50% of those 50-64, and
42% of those over 65. 56% of women favored impeachment, compared to 49%

of men. Among African Americans, 90% favored impeachment, compared to
67% of Hispanics, and 46% of whites. Majorities of Catholics, Jews,
Muslims, and Others favored impeachment, while 49% of Protestants and
46% of Born Again Christians did so.

Majorities favored impeachment in the East (53%), West (56%), and
Central states (58%), but not the South (43%). In large cities, 58%
support impeachment; in small cities, 56%; in suburbs, 49%; in rural
areas, 46%.

Support for Impeachment Has Surged Since June

The new Zogby poll shows a dramatic transformation in support for
Bush's
impeachment since late June. (This is only the third poll that has
asked Americans about their support for impeaching Bush in 2005,
despite
his record-low approval ratings.) The Zogby poll conducted June 27-29
of
905 likely voters found that 42% agreed and 50% disagreed with the
identical statement asked about in this recent polling. This question
was virtually identical to one used in early October by Ipsos Public
Affairs, which found that 50% agreed and 44% disagreed that Congress
should consider impeaching Bush if he did not tell the truth about his
reasons for war.

.....................Zogby........Ipsos.....Zogby.....Net Change
....................10/29-11/2....10/8-9....6/27-29.....Jun-Nov

Support Impeachment....53%..........50%.......42%........+11%
Oppose Impeachment.....42%..........44%.......50%.........-8%

Impeachment Margin....+11%..........+6%.......-8%........+19%

After the June poll, pollster John Zogby told the Washington Post that
support for impeachment "was much higher than I expected." At the time,

impeachment supporters trailed opponents by 8%. Now supporters
outnumber
opponents by 11%, a remarkable shift of 19%.

If impeachment support continues to grow by 3% each month, it will
reach
60% in January, 65% in March, and 70% in April.

Support for Clinton Impeachment Was Much Lower

In August and September of 1998, 16 major polls asked about impeaching
President Clinton (http://democrats.com/clinton-impeachment-polls).
Only
36% supported hearings to consider impeachment, and only 26% supported
actual impeachment and removal. Even so, the impeachment debate
dominated the news for months, and the Republican Congress impeached
Clinton despite overwhelming public opposition.

Impeachment Support is Closely Related to Belief that Bush Lied about
Iraq

The Zogby and Ipsos polls asked about support for impeachment if Bush
lied about the reasons for war, rather than asking simply about support

for impeachment. Pollsters predict that asking simply about impeachment

without any context would produce a large number of "I don't know"
responses. However, this may understate those who support Bush's
impeachment for other reasons, such as his actions before and
immediately after Hurricane Katrina, his negligence prior to 9-11, his
use of torture, and the CIA outing scandal.

Other polls show a majority of U.S. adults believe that Bush did in
fact
lie about the reasons for war. A June 23-26 ABC/Washington Post poll
found 52% of Americans believe the Bush administration "deliberately
misled the public before the war," and 57% say the Bush administration
"intentionally exaggerated its evidence that pre-war Iraq possessed
nuclear, chemical or biological weapons." Support for the war has
dropped significantly since June, which suggests that the percentage of

Americans who believe Bush lied about the war has increased.

Passion for Impeachment is Major Unreported Story

The strong support for impeachment found in this poll is especially
surprising because the views of impeachment supporters are entirely
absent from the broadcast and print media, and can only be found on the

Internet and in street protests. The lack of coverage of impeachment
support is due in part to the fact that not a single Democrat in
Congress has called for impeachment, despite considerable grassroots
activism by groups like Democrats.com (http://democrats.com/impeach).

The passion of impeachment supporters is directly responsible for the
new poll commissioned by After Downing Street. After the Zogby poll in
June, activists led by Democrats.com urged all of the major polling
organizations to include an impeachment question in their upcoming
polls. But none of the polling organizations were willing to do so for
free, so on September 30, AfterDowningStreet.org posted a request for
donations to fund paid polls (http://afterdowningstreet.org/polling).
People responded with small donations (on average $27) which quickly
added up to over $10,000. After Downing Street has spent a portion of
that money on the Ipsos Poll and the new Zogby Poll.

Footnotes:

1. AfterDowningStreet.org is a rapidly growing coalition of veterans'
groups, peace groups, and political activist groups that was created on

May 26, 2005, following the publication of the Downing Street Memo in
London's Sunday Times on May 1. The coalition is urging Congress to
begin a formal investigation into whether President Bush committed
impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war.

2. The Ipsos Public Affairs poll and the new Zogby poll results cited
above refer to surveys of U.S. adults. The June Zogby results are from
a
survey of likely voters. The new Zogby poll produced results for both
adults and likely voters (see footnote 3).

3. Here are the complete data tables from all three polls.
November Zogby: Adults, and Likely Voters.
October Ipsos: Adults, and definitions of regions.
June Zogby: Likely Voters.

http://www.democrats.com/bush-impeachment-poll-2

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