The President himself continues to earn high marks. A full 86 percent of those polled say they approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president, an increase from 82 percent last week. Eighty-eight percent approve of Bush’s handling of the crisis, virtually unchanged from 89 percent one week ago in the NEWSWEEK poll.
Americans remain committed to a military response to the attack, with 71 percent saying they support military action against terrorists and the countries that harbor them. But 59 percent say they are willing to wait until the government has a plan that works. Americans are also in favor of exploring other options: 69 percent think intelligence operations could be very effective, while 64 percent advocate freezing terrorist finances and 52 percent think that putting terrorists on trial would be very effective, as opposed to killing terrorist leaders (45 percent) or attacking bases (46 percent).
Sixty-three percent of those polled say it will be necessary for the average person to give up some civil liberties in order to curb terrorism in the United States; 32 percent say it won’t be necessary. And 67 percent say the government has handled restricting civil liberties in the right way so far; 24 percent say the government has not gone far enough. As a way to improve security and protect against terrorism, 53 percent favor closely monitoring the whereabouts of legal immigrants to the United States from Arab and Muslim countries. Forty-nine percent favor monitoring the whereabouts of all legal immigrants to the United States.
Looking to the future, 79 percent of Americans polled say the terrorist attacks will do more to change the country for the better by making it stronger and more unified; only 14 percent say it will change the country for the worse by reducing freedom and prosperity and threatening the American way of life, the poll shows.
And Americans say they haven’t let the attacks change their lives dramatically: 85 percent say they have not canceled or postponed at trip they had planned to take; 84 percent have not canceled or postponed making a major household purchase; 69 percent have not decided to cut back on spending for holiday gifts this year. Seventy-nine percent say they’ve displayed an American flag; 64 percent have donated money, food or other supplies to the relief efforts; 60 percent have lit a candle and 50 percent have attended a special religious or ecumenical service, the poll shows.
And although the stock market took a beating last week, Americans are fairly confident that the downswing will not be long-lived. Only 26 percent believe economic fallout from the attacks will cause a long recession, while 58 percent believe there will be a brief recession and 10 percent don’t think there will be any recession at all.
Americans assign a variety of motives to the terrorists who attacked New York and Washington on Sept. 11. Most (68 percent) attribute the attack to opposition of U.S. ties to Israel and U.S. policies toward Palestinians. However, 64 percent think terrorists resent U.S. military and economic power in general, while only 28 percent think the United States has been attacked because of Muslim opposition to American popular culture or because Western capitalism has created economic hardships in Muslim countries (37 percent).
