Bush’s Historic Opportunity
The president’s chance to launch a massive attack on terrorism.

September 14, 2001 11:00 p.m.

n Monday evening, before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Gallup organization finished up its latest poll of public opinion on the job George W. Bush is doing as president. The survey found that the president's job-approval rating had fallen to 51 percent, his lowest ever in a Gallup poll, and his job disapproval rating had risen to 39 percent, the highest ever for Bush.

It would certainly have been news had events not intervened. But now, four days later, Bush sits atop massive levels of public support — and enjoys overwhelming backing for a historic attack on terrorism.

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted Thursday evening shows that 86 percent of those surveyed approve of the job Bush is doing (63 percent of those say they strongly approve), while just 12 percent disapprove. Bush's ratings are even higher on the question of whether the public approves of the way he is handling America's response to Tuesday's attacks. Ninety-one percent of those polled say they approve, while just seven percent say they do not.

The poll also shows that the door is wide open for Bush to mount an full-frontal assault on terrorism. Even though the Post's questions seemed framed in a way designed to identify potential opposition to such a move, the survey found widespread support for extensive U.S. military action.

Ninety-three percent support military action if the United States can identify the groups or nations responsible for Tuesday's attacks. Eighty-six percent support such action even if it means U.S. entry into a war. Seventy-seven percent support military action if it means innocent civilians in other countries might be hurt or killed. And 69 percent support it even if it means America's entry into "a long war with large numbers of U.S. troops killed or injured."

The poll also showed that Americans have confidence in U.S. government security agencies' ability to handle the situation. Ninety-five percent say they are confident the U.S would be able to find and punish the people responsible for the attack.

Such public solidarity presents Bush with an extraordinary opportunity to launch a real attack on terrorism — no Clintonian pinpricks, limited cruise-missile strikes, or reading Osama bin Laden his rights. And it suggests that Bush did not suffer at all from his poor "find those folks who committed this act" public performance on the day of the attacks — a performance that quietly dismayed, and in some cases infuriated, some of his supporters.

Although there have been comparisons to Bush's father's legendary 90 + percent approval rating in the wake of the Gulf War — approval that petered out before the 1992 election — it is perhaps more informative to compare today's ratings with those of the first Bush White House shortly after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

In July 1990, before the invasion, Gallup found that Bush I enjoyed a 60 percent approval rating. By mid-August, after the invasion, approval had risen to 74 percent. That number, along with public support for planned military action in the Gulf, was less than the support George W. Bush enjoys today. In addition, there was a widespread debate in Congress and in the public arena over whether military action was actually in the American interest.

That question that is moot today. George W. Bush stands unencumbered by politics, with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use massive military power against terrorism.