It's a "Jump to Conclusions" Mat!

The Pew Center has released the following findings on attitudes about the Iraq war:

The survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press -- which also plumbed opinions of journalists, university presidents and others in academe, diplomats, government officials, religious leaders, members of the military, scientists and international security specialists -- revealed a marked disconnect between the perceptions of the general public and many of the so-called opinion leaders.

When asked whether they thought democracy would succeed in Iraq, only 33 percent of the journalists agreed that it had a chance. The number was even worse in academe -- 27 percent of respondents thought the effort would succeed. ... Meanwhile, close to half of the American public -- 48 percent -- think the decision to take military action in Iraq was the right one. Among journalists, 28 percent thought the decision was justified. The number was 21 percent among the academic elites and 49 percent in the military.

The public is evenly divided on whether the war in Iraq has helped or hindered efforts to combat terrorism, 44 percent thought the conflict has helped the effort and the same number thought it has hurt. In the press, 68 percent said the war had hurt the effort, and 22 percent said it had helped.

If you're a Bush apologist like John Hinderacker -- "Code Name: Hindrocket!" -- over at the Conspiracy in Mom's Basement that the world knows as Power Line!, then your knee-jerk response would be this:

This confirms what we already knew, that the vast majority of reporters and editors are Democrats and are far to the left of the American people as a whole.

Yes, John. When all the people who make a living reading, writing and thinking about a problem all day long come away with a different conclusion than the people who sorta heard something about it over breakfast from the blow-dried and neutered mimbo anchor on "Fox and Friends," well, obviously it's not because that first group actually knows more about the matter and has what communists call "an informed opinion." Oh, no. It's proof of a vast left-wing conspiracy, working out there to subvert the infallible will of the people.

Right.