In an editorial today, the Los Angles Times asks the administration to pay particular attention to a poll (University of Maryland) that shows that we are losing support among Muslims, even from countries that we would consider less ant-American than others. The poll also shows that Muslim support for Bin Laden has also eroded.

Thrown in at the end of the piece is a note that less than ¼ of those surveyed believe Bin Laden was behind 9/11 and les than 2% of those polled in Pakistan think that Bin Laden masterminded the attack.

If those polled start with the premise that Bin Laden, who has repeatedly begged to be given credit for the attacks, was not involved in 9/11, why is any part of the poll taken seriously? That we are losing the PR battle among Muslims was pretty much a given before the poll. This is the inherit danger of direct democracy, that it doesn’t matter how ignorant those polled are, our elected officials should listen to them and react in accordance with their wishes. Love him or hate him, President Bush has proven to be the politician most resistant to governing by polls in modern history. While I think listening a bit more to the American people would serve him well, the Times request that he base American policies on polls of those we are at war with seems a bit much. I am almost certain that Roosevelt would not have polled well among the Japanese and the Germans in the early 1940’s, but I equally certain that listening would have been a mistake.