TNR's Peter Beinart has examined the latest polling data on Iraq and the war on terror, and thinks that the Mayberry Machiavellis may have outsmarted themselves again [Sub. Req'd]:

[T]he Bush administration has waged an unrelenting p.r. campaign to make sure Americans see Iraq not as a separate conflict, but as "the central battle in the war on terrorism." The hope has been that the public's strong support for Bush's handling of "terrorism"--support that stems largely from his decisive response to September 11--would brighten its view of his handling of Iraq.

This winter--after it became clear that Saddam Hussein's capture wouldn't stop the Iraqi insurgency--that p.r. strategy began to fail. By February 11, support for Bush on Iraq was down to 47 percent. But 64 percent of Americans still backed his handling of the war on terrorism. Despite the administration's efforts to link the two issues, the public was increasingly seeing them as distinct.

For the White House, the failure of this linkage strategy was bad news--since it left the president with one foreign policy strength (terrorism) and one growing weakness (Iraq). But, this week, the news got far worse. According to the new ABC/Post poll, the public is connecting Iraq and terrorism once again. Except now, instead of terrorism pulling Iraq up, Iraq is pulling terrorism down. Bush's approval on Iraq has dropped to 44 percent, down three points from February. But his terrorism rating has plummeted to 50 percent, a whopping 14-point drop. For the first time in more than a year, the Iraq and terrorism numbers are within a few points of one another. The public again believes that Iraq is the central battle in the war on terrorism. Except now it fears America is losing both.

Now, wouldn't that be rich? (Mr. Rove, you had a wartime president and Ralph Nader on the ballot in several key states. Why aren't you in the winners' circle tonight? Well, you see, Judy, these results just make it official. We really lost this election way back in June, when our disingenuous PR strategy started working....) Poetic justice at last.

It couldn't happen to a better group of guys.

POSTSCRIPT: As I've said before, Karl Rove and Co. aren't nearly as good as their reputations would suggest, and if President Bush doesn't figure that out soon, he really could lose this election. But don't look for him to make that calculation in time. As the Monica mess convincingly demonstrated, we can't expect presidents to be what they're not -- and following bad advice just seems to be as fundamental a part of this president's character as his faith in God, his love of family, and his persistent and baffling trust in the strange idea that when you smirk, the world smirks with you.

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