President Bush's approval rating more than twice that of Congress! Iraqi government making great progress, given satisfactory on 15 of 18 benchmarks!

You won't see these headlines in the main stream media. Both, however, are true and the public should be told about each. The main stream media won't so we will. Read on.

Let's start with the first headline, "President Bush's approval rating more than twice that of Congress". Strategic Vision did a poll based on telephone interviews with 1200 likely voters in Florida, aged 18+, and conducted from June 27-29, 2008. The margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points. Here are the questions they asked:

Do you approve or disapprove of President Bush's overall job performance?
Approve 34%
Disapprove 57%
Undecided 9%

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Congress is performing its job?
Approve 14%
Disapprove 71%
Undecided 15%

Here is an extra bit of good news for Florida Republicans from this same survey:

If the election for President were held today would you support John McCain, the Republican, Barack Obama, the Democrat, or Bob Barr, the Libertarian?
John McCain 49%
Barack Obama 41%
Bob Barr 1%
Undecided 9%

Now for the second headline, "Iraqi government making great progress, given satisfactory on 15 of 18 benchmarks!" Not heard about this? No wonder, none of the major news outlets or newspapers, with the exception of Fox News even ran the story.

According to the Washington Post, "Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress, according to a report by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad."

The Post states, "The embassy judged that the only remaining shortfalls were the Baghdad government's failure to enact and implement laws governing the oil industry and the disarmament of militia and insurgent groups, and continuing problems with the professionalism of the Iraqi police. All other goals -- including preparations for upcoming elections, reform of de-Baathification and disarmament laws, progress on enacting and spending Iraq's budget, and the capabilities of the Iraqi army -- were rated "satisfactory."

"The embassy cited progress toward increasing the number of Iraqi security force units capable of independent operations. Although it says that the overall number of units that can operate independently has increased "marginally," it concludes that "70% of all formed units can now conduct [counter-insurgency] operations with or without Coalition support." says the Post article.

Finally, from the earlier mentioned survey by Strategic Vision are these two questions asked of Florida voters:

Do you favor an immediate withdrawal of the United States military forces from Iraq, within the next six months?
Yes 42%
No 44%
Undecided 14%

Do you approve or disapprove of President Bush's handling of the war on terrorism?
Approve 55%
Disapprove 40%
Undecided 5%

Good news. Something that is sorely lacking in the main stream media.