‘Not Aggressively Enough’
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Buried near the end of a 12-page fax that came across our desk reporting the results of a recent Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll was a statistic that jolted us to attention: 39% of likely voters think the Bush administration hasn’t been aggressive enough in pursuing terrorists.
The finding came in response to a survey of 1,000 likely voters nationwide who were asked, “In the war against terrorism, do you think the Bush administration has pursued terrorists too aggressively or not aggressively enough?” Only 24% said the Bush administration had been too aggressive, while 25% said the Bush administration’s response had been about right, and 12% said they were not sure. The 39% who said the Bush administration had not been aggressive enough were by far the plurality.
This finding isn’t a fluke: The same question, asked by Fox News/Opinion Dynamics in January 2004 to registered voters, found 37% said the Bush administration had been not aggressive enough, while 18% said it had been too aggressive. Back in January, 36% said the Bush administration was about right, and 9% said they weren’t sure. The overall results in January were roughly similar to the current ones.
What does this finding mean politically, less than two months before a presidential election? Kerry partisans may consider it a positive finding for them that only 25% of likely voters think Mr. Bush has calibrated his response to the terrorists about right. But Mr. Kerry has been running a campaign funded and staffed by, and geared to appeal to, an even smaller fraction – the 24% who say Mr. Bush has been too aggressive. Mr. Kerry’s Senate voting record and his rhetoric during the campaign so far would make him an unlikely messenger for the idea that Mr. Bush needs to be ousted because he hasn’t been aggressive enough against the terrorists.
But that 39% number is a cautionary note for any Bush advisers starting to feel overconfident about coasting to victory on the appeal of the president’s leadership in the war on terror. The American public has watched in the three years since September 11 as terror-sponsoring regimes in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea have gotten away without being punished. Iran is closer than ever to a nuclear bomb. The Iraqi regime has been changed, yet it doesn’t demean the accomplishments of our GIs to warn that areas of Iraq remain nests for terrorists.
As a measure of American opinion, in any event, the findings are something for the next president of America to keep in mind. The 18% to 24% of Americans who think the Bush administration has been too aggressive in the war on terrorism make a lot of noise. They go to protest marches and make documentary films. They have political candidates like Howard Dean and Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich and on most days Mr. Kerry.
The other side – the 37% to 39% of Americans who think the Bush administration has not been aggressive enough in the war on terrorism – has no candidate to vote for in November other than Mr. Bush himself. Plenty of people in this group aren’t protest-march or documentary-film types. Nor are the 25% of respondents who reckon the president is handling terror the right way. But they form a reservoir of political support that the next president could draw on readily should he decide to do what is necessary to protect America and to win the war.