MSNBC reports:

Fifty-two percent said they strongly believe the Obama administration should not release the photos, and an additional 12 percent agreed, although not as strongly.

By comparison, 24 percent said they strongly believe the photos should be released, and 5 percent more agreed not so strongly.

The complete results of the poll will be released later today.

The news may come as a surprise to public figures like Sarah Palin who have pandered to the so-called “deather” conspiracy holding that last weekend’s raid on bin Laden’s Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound was somehow faked. Last week, Palin used her Twitter account to command Obama to release the photos. She contended that releasing the images would scare would-be terrorists from tangling with the U.S. “No pussy-footing around, no politicking, no drama,” she said. “[I]t’s part of the mission.”

Other Republicans, including Sen. Lindsay Graham (S.C.) and Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), have also come out in favor of releasing the photos, though they both said it was out of concern that conspiracy theories surrounding bin Laden would create political fallout at home and abroad. DNA tests and an al Qaeda statement have since confirmed bin Laden’s death at the hands of the U.S. military.

The 75-minute forum filled several sections of Furman University’s Timmons Arena and attracted demonstrators, critics with handheld cameras, shouts of “traitor” and “Sotomayor” – and a smattering of supporters. … One man told Graham he had “betrayed” conservatism and made a “pact with the devil” by working with Democrats, and asked when Graham would switch parties.

There’s a lot of video of the event. One clip, after the jump, has a heckler yelling “You and Obama are guilty of treason! Article I, Section 9! You’re a traitor, Lindsey Graham! You betrayed this nation!” But what does it mean?

On the surface, not much. Graham loves to tangle with the elements of the GOP base that he considers extreme — he has gone out of his way to wrestle with Ron Paul supporters countless times over the past two years. But what does it say about two coming Democratic priorities — climate change legislation and immigration reform? Are both of those issues going to test the unity of the conservative movement and the GOP, which has been strengthened by opposition to health care reform?

And they’ve just hit something of a roadblock in their effort to derail the Hill nomination. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the ranking Republican on the committee, is supporting Hill. A Lugar staffer said that the senator met with Hill this morning and the meeting ended with Lugar backing Hill’s nomination.

I’ll have more on the fight over Hill later.

“We have real concerns with the President’s decision to nominate Assistant Secretary Christopher Hill as the next U.S. Ambassador to Iraq,” said Senators Graham and McCain. “While Mr. Hill is a talented diplomat who has served our country for many years, his selection for this post concerns us.

“The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is the world’s largest, and our next ambassador will take the helm at a particularly critical time in our efforts in Iraq,” Graham and McCain continued. “The next ambassador should have experience in the Middle East and in working closely with the U.S. military in counterinsurgency or counterterrorism operations. Mr. Hill has neither. Given these considerations, together with the controversial legacy Mr. Hill left in his North Korea diplomacy, we believe that the President should reconsider this nomination.”

First, the substantive case against Hill that they make isn’t without merit: he doesn’t have any Middle East experience, doesn’t speak Arabic, and doesn’t have much in the way of experience with counterinsurgency. But really not many ambassadors can fit all three criteria. Maybe that’s an argument for promoting some of the longer-serving staff at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Longtime embassy political counselor Robert Ford is already an ambassador; and he’s already slated to be deputy chief of mission, the person in charge of day-to-day management of the embassy.

But Hill is also an extremely well-esteemed diplomat. McCain and Graham should explain how his tenure with the North Korean negotiations was actually problematic, since it resulted in the destruction of the Yongbyon nuclear reactor. More recent backsliding on disarmament in the North can hardly be attributed to Hill alone. What’s more, if he was “controversial,” he was controversial in productive ways. From The Washington Post:

In David Sanger’s recently published book, “The Inheritance,” Hill offered a blunt dismissal of his hard-line foes in the administration. “These [expletive deleted] don’t know how to negotiate,” he said. “Everything is Appomattox. It’s just ‘Come out with your hands up.’ ” …

Hill arrived in South Korea in 2004, when tensions with the United States were running high. In Seoul, he broke with diplomatic precedent — and charmed the South Korean public — by repeatedly visiting universities and other hotbeds of anti-Americanism to give speeches and have debates. He established an online chat room and personally answered questions from Koreans under the name “ambassador.”

Who would Graham or McCain send in Hill’s place?