Amazingly, after days of over-the-top misreporting on the Qana incident the American people have once again demonstrated a resiliancy to media mayhem. The media’s credibility is pretty shot in this country, so hyperventilating stories laced with insults tend to increase skepticism, not reduce it. The LA Times is reporting a poll that demonstrates this theory quite well. It is a poll of American views regarding the events in the ME between Israel and Hezbollah:

— Most Americans consider Israel’s bombing campaign in Lebanon justified, but they are divided about what role the United States should play in the crisis and how closely the nation should align itself with the Jewish state, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

…

he poll found that 43% said Israel’s bombing campaign was justified but not excessively harsh, while 16% described the response as justified but excessive. Fewer than one in three respondents — 28% — said the response to Hezbollah was unjustified.

59 to 28. Two to one against the hype in the media. I suspected as much when I talked to some very staunch democrats in my family who never once bought into the Qana stagecraft. They all felt right away Hexbollah enticed the attack by setting up military equipment near and in the village.

Predictably, the poll or the LA Times never discuss the view on Hezbollah in all of this. Obviously they poll was designed to answer the question “is support for Israel slipping” verses the real question “which side is more justifed iin their acts and actions”. Why would I expect any less from a paper that has to add this gratuitous swipe into the story:

The poll found that nearly three in five respondents — 59% — backed Israel in the dispute that has now lasted more than three weeks, leaving hundreds dead and aligning much of the world in disagreement with the United States and Israel over whether to pursue an immediate cease-fire.

The corrallary to this wild claim (because I maintain the US and Israel are only out of sync with the world’s news media, not the governments or people) is that the world is aligned with Hezbollah. Sad if true. Well, the LA Times is a bastion of far left thought – a dying political view to say the least.

What was telling is the clear anti-Israeli bias and the cut-and-run knee jerk reactions from liberal commentators and figure heads (say hello Jimmy) has sent a clear message to the Jewish voters here in the US.

Overall, 50% of the survey’s respondents said the United States should continue to align with Israel, compared with 44% who backed a more neutral posture. But the partisan gap was clear: Democrats supported neutrality over alignment, 54% to 39%, while Republicans supported alignment with the Jewish state 64% to 29%.

No more than 2% in either party supported siding more with Arab countries.

The GOP support for Israel mirrors the staunch backing the country has received from Bush. It also underscores a recalibration in the U.S. electorate — although Jewish voters remain overwhelmingly Democratic, the GOP under Bush has succeeded in winning support from more religious Jews.

I am not surprised. I am only surprised it took this long to happen. More here at the Washington Post. And America is not in the mood for the Democrats ridiculous Chicken Little cries of possible abuse of terrorist surveillance efforts for personal vendettas here in the US. These fantasy scenarios never compare to the real and obvious threat of attack that we get reminded of by bombings in Madrid, London, Bali and Bombay. The Democrats have been playing a dumb hand it is is going to truly hurt them.

A strong majority — 65% — said it was acceptable for the government to be tracking terrorist financing by monitoring international banking transactions, a program that was revealed in reports last month by The Times and other newspapers. The survey also showed that the public is evenly split on the acceptability of a spy program in which the National Security Agency monitors certain phone calls and e-mail correspondence by people in the United States.

Americans are in no mood to die to protect the communications and banking transactions of terrorists simply because some liberals still see images of Nixon in their minds. You need hard evidence of abuse that can bypass all the checks currently in the system to detect abuse. The NY and LA Times both rationalized the exposure of these programs because 9-11 was so far gone in the past these measures were no longer needed. They decreed ‘Mission Accomplished’ on the war on terror and exposed our defences. Then came Bombay with over 200 killed using 8 bombs. Now we have Hezbollah on the ropes and another Bin Laden riding to the rescue of Islamo Fascism. Seems the news media was too quick to call for victory.