Poll shows only 11% agree with Obama administration that the war on terror is over

Last week, the Obama administration attempted to float the notion that the war on terror was over, probably in anticipation of its celebrations this week of the mission that killed Osama bin Laden.  National Journal got the officially unofficial leak from the White House about the nomenclature change, as well as an almost-immediate retreat:

 “The war on terror is over,” one senior State Department official who works on Mideast issues told me. “Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.”  (In a Tuesday night update to this post, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor clarified that while the “war on terror” concept has been dropped, “we absolutely have never said our war against al Qaida is over. We are prosecuting that war at an unprecedented pace.”

At the most obvious level, this is a very strange argument to make.  We have tens of thousands of troops in a shooting war in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban, al-Qaeda’s ally and one-time enablers.  Barack Obama himself wisely increased the number of combat troops in that theater to ensure that we maintained our advantage.  If that’s not a war on terror, then what exactly is it?
The test balloon didn’t exactly resonate with the American public.  A Rasmussen poll released yesterday shows that only 11% believe the war on terror is over, and a majority think that a terrorist attack in the next year is still a realistic possibility:

Voters overwhelmingly reject the idea that the war on terror is over one year after the death of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, although most feel his al Qaeda terrorist group is weaker today. But a majority also still thinks a terrorist attack is possible in the next year.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 11% of Likely U.S. Voters think the war on terror is over. Seventy-nine percent (79%) say that war, declared after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America, is not over. Another 11% are undecided.

The poll has some good news for Obama, though:

Read more: http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/01/poll-shows-only-11-agree-with-obama-administration-that-the-war-on-terror-is-over/