Fascinating Stuff in this Newsweek Poll

32 % of Republicans "favor ... Congressional legislation that would require the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the fall of 2008?." When will Democrats in Congress will be bold enough to place themselves left of the Republican center. When will pigs fly.

63% of Americans claim they are willing to vote for a Gay President ! I don't believe them, but I am thrilled that the reviled group to which I belong (atheists) is opening up a big lead in the most hated contest (my little sister once asked how I could stand to be an upper middle class white American man saying "at least I'm a woman").

However, only 59% of Americans are willing to vote for a presidential candidate who is a strong supporter of gay marriage. Odd.

Newsweek also looks at a new group "Evangelical Republicans" (also known as "the base")

As is widely noted, they are more likely to be divorced than are other Americans. Ha.
A really impressive thing is that only 3% of evangelical republicans are unwilling to vote for a divorced candidate and only 8% are unwilling to vote for a multiply divorced candidate (great news for Rudy). Finally, and this is absolutely wonderfully honest, when asked "

20. If a presidential candidate talks about upholding traditional family values, are you less likely to believe them if they have been divorced themselves, or doesn’t it make much difference to you?"only 28% say "less likely". Hypocrisy is the new official religion.

The divorce results show that Americans and especially evangelical Republicans feel the need to protect the family from gay marriage but don't seem to mind divorce much. I always considered the increase in divorce (and never marrying the other parent of your children) the family crisis pretty much by defnition. It seems to me that protecting family values doesn't have much to do with protecting families.