What Do Americans Think the Democrats Really Want in Iraq?

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Dems Hope for Failure?

The latest FOX News Opinion Dynamics poll indicates almost half of those surveyed believe Democrats want the president's plan for Iraq to fail.

48 percent said they believe Democrats are hoping for failure and a U.S. troop withdrawal in defeat. 32 percent said they believe Democrats want the president's plan to work.

The president's favorable rating was 38 percent in the latest poll — down five percent from October. But that was higher than the number for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who came in at 33 percent.

Women Without Spouses

The New York Times is coming under fire for a story this week with the headline proclaiming "51 percent of women are now living without a spouse."

The story is based on 2005 census data. But critics point out that 51 percent of women includes more than 10 million girls between the ages of 15 and 19, and 2.5 million women whose husbands are working out of town, in the military, or in institutions.

It also includes nine million widows who obviously were married until their husbands died. That same census data indicates 94 percent of all U.S. women above the age of 50 will have married some time in their lives

Skeptics Decertified?

A climate expert on the Weather Channel says TV weather forecasters who express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming should lose their official certification.

Heidi Cullen hosts a weekly show on the station. She writes on the Weather Channel Web site that, "If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS — American Meteorological Society — shouldn't give them a seal of approval. It's like allowing a meteorologist to go on-air and say that hurricanes rotate clockwise."

But in fact — hurricanes DO rotate clockwise — in the southern hemisphere, where they are called cyclones.

Didn't File Returns

And the IRS says active and retired federal government employees owe almost $3 billion in back taxes.

A report from a Washington radio station says more than 450,000 federal workers did not file income tax returns for 2005. 71 of those worked in the Executive Office of the President, which includes the White House.

The federal agency with the highest number of delinquent taxpayers is the postal service. The group with the best compliance rate is the Treasury Department — which includes the IRS.

—FOX News Channel's Martin Hill contributed to this report.