Polls Together, Polls Apart

Look at these two recent polls:

USA Today and CNN:
Most Iraqis live in fear of violence 4 years after invasion

The Sunday Times:
Resilient Iraqis ask what civil war?

The differences are striking. The USA Today poll focus strictly on bad news (it never mentions that a majority still thinks that life today is better than under Saddam). The Sunday Times is much fairer, even though it could have been more direct.

Which one do you think will get more exposure?

According to a BBC poll, it is easy to guess:

- 60% believed the US and UK were not right to invade Iraq exactly four years ago.
- In contrast, 57% of people would back British military action overseas if it was to assist disaster relief or stop genocide.

Do these people think the Iraqis did not need relief? Or do they think Saddam was not a genocidal dictator?

If even with the current mess in Iraq 49% of Iraqis still think life now is better than before, can you imagine how bad life was before?

Or maybe they think that there is a magic way to remove these guys from power! Every single time I hear people calling for something to be done in Darfur, I imagine what exactly they think would happen. Would R.E.M. be ok with invading Sudan? Would they ask for a timeline? How many US soldiers would we be willing to have killed? Do they remember at all what Mogadishu was about?

Am I really asking for too much here?