What Do the Iraqis Think?

And now the most scintillating two minutes in television, the latest from the wartime grapevine:

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First Opinion Poll in 25 Years
The first opinion poll to be conducted in Iraq in 25 years suggests a majority of Iraqis -- at least those in Baghdad (search) -- support the U.S.-led invasion of their own country. A poll conducted by New Delhi Television in Baghdad shows 54 percent of Iraqis think America did the right thing by invading Iraq. Thirty-two percent disagree. However, now that the war is winding down, 52 percent of Iraqis want U.S. troops to leave Iraq immediately, while 43 percent want them to stay and rebuild Iraq. New Delhi TV says it questioned 1,000 Iraqis at more than 20 locations in Baghdad, two thirds of them men and 12 percent of them Christians, in a country only 3 percent Christian.

Stormin' Norman
Norman Mailer, the American author and political activist who after 9/11 said the hijackers were "brilliant" and that the World Trade Center (search) was a "tower of Babel, which consequently had to be destroyed," is now sharing his theories on the war in Iraq, writing in The London Times that we went to war because "we very much needed a war." With the American economy sinking, the Catholic Church embroiled in scandal, the feminist movement gaining ground, and Tiger Woods leading the PGA Tour, Mailer says, "Bush thought white American men needed to know they were still good at something."

Joltin' Joe
A new Gallup poll out today shows Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (search) leads the race for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. Twenty-three percent of those who said they would vote Democratic said they favored Lieberman as their party's nominee, followed by Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry with 17 percent. In Iowa, however, scene of the first Democratic caucuses, Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt leads the field, with 25-percent support among Democrats, followed by John Kerry, with Lieberman third.

Gender Bender
Smith College, an all-women's school whose graduates include former first ladies Barbara Bush and Nancy Reagan and feminists Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, is replacing the pronouns "she" and "her" in its student constitution with gender-neutral terms. It seems students who voted for the change don't want to offend people who identify themselves as "transgendered" or who have undergone "sex-reassignment" surgery. A school official told the Daily Hampshire Gazette that though Smith is a college for women, it is "a place for all kinds of women."