RealClear Media publisher David DesRosiers, host of RAV’s “Get Real,” talks to political analyst and syndicated columnist Ellis Henican about the war in Iran.

DAVID DESROSIERS: Welcome back to Get Real. I’m David DesRosiers, your host and publisher of RealClear Media. Now, let’s talk about public opinion. And the war, despite the United States’ superiority in the theater, is not presently good. According to the Real Clear average, which is to be trusted and used at all times, surveys on Iran, 43 percent of those polled approved, while 48 opposed. That’s not a good number. You know, George Bush, by contrast, was at 74 percent for the Iraq war after the evasion began in early 2003. The president responded to the bad polls saying he doesn’t care about the polls. He is leading by quiet shock and awe example. The polls are not good and the polls are important. They’re an important credit rating measure. Ellis, you mentioned polling in the last block. I mean, jump in. Feel free to offer constructive advice. ELLIS HENICAN: Well, first of all, I do genuflect to the Real Clear average. I use it all the time. And I do think it’s really the best compendium of what Americans are thinking at any given moment. You know, it’s interesting to me, and maybe the other guys have a better insight on this, but I don’t feel like the president or really the secretary of defense or secretary of state made much of an effort to sell this thing at all. I mean, I think there were some cases you could have made. There was a way to pitch it. One of the lessons I know just as a talker and a writer is that you’ve got to know what you think and you’ve got to say it clearly. And I don’t think that’s yet been done. Maybe there’s still time. You know, we are still in the early phases of this thing, but it beats me why there seems to have been so little effort to make a case here. Maybe the president is right. Maybe he doesn’t care about the support. Why don’t you take Doug’s time and make the case? I mean, I think you want to focus on the strongest part of the case. This is fun. It’s like the debate class, right, where you do the other side. The strongest part of the case is how bad the Iranians are, right? I mean, you’ll notice in the opposition that nobody on the left, no Dems are rallying around the leadership in Iran. I mean, they can’t be defended, right? They’re horrible. The way they treated their people, the protests in the street that have been so ignored. So I guess the best case is to focus on that. But you do need to wrestle with the question of regime change. And I’m not sure where we are on that. We were going to do it. Then we are definitely not going to do it. Now the president is saying, well, he wants to have a voice in who the new leadership is. I’d say you got to solve that question.

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