I personally think the biggest reason for the public's turnaround was when Bush associated the war with Al-Queda and terrorism. I think a lot more people would be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt if he would have stuck with the WMD argument...which is the main reason we went to Iraq in the first place. Even the democratic party (for the most part) agreed we needed to do it.

Had we have gone there, found no WMD's, and stuck around to help rebuild, I think more people would be more forgiving. Then Bush threw in the terrorist link which wasn't really there, and that's when people turned on him. It went from "Helping to rebuild" to "Hunting terrorists that weren't there in the first place, but now they are."

I personally am supportive of what we're doing over therefor the original reason we went there. Unlike many, I didn't turn my back on Bush...I think the whole "terror link" was a republican political move because at the time the hunt for Osama was hot and heavy, and it's what the people wanted to hear. Granted, it was a dumb, poorly thought out move, but what politician in the same situation wouldn't have done the same thing to keep his numbers up with the public? Unfortunately for him, in this case, it backfired bad.