I just got back from an overnight trip to the mountains--wonderfully relaxing! And then I saw this article in today's WorldNetDaily about a new Zogby poll. I'm still relaxed, but I must dispute the results of the poll. Here's the conclusion based on the poll results:
A new Zogby poll indicates a majority of Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval.
That sounds suspicious to me, since I believe a majority of Americans want the President to fight the GWOT and keep us safe. I found the reason for the apparent discrepancy between the Americans' desire for safety and the results of the poll in the way the question was worded:
"If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."
Those agreeing were 52 percent, disagreeing were 43 percent, and 6 percent didn't know or didn't answer. Well, duh!
When they say, "...wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge," most normal people think about wiretaps that are set to monitor all calls coming from or going to a particular American citizen's phone. Of course people would think that's wrong, illegal, and impeachable.
What I want to know is how people would respond if the question were asked this way:
"If a security agency learned that an al-Qaeda member was placing a call to someone in the US, and the President authorized the agency to listen in without first getting approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."
This is a no-brainer. Well over 50 percent would say a resounding No!
This is agenda polling at its worst. They oversimplify and distort the facts of a situation, ask questions based on the distortion, and then report the results as though they accurately reflected the views of the respondents on the real situation. It stinks, and Zogby should be ashamed.
2 comments:
You nailed it. Great post.
This sort of thing happens all the time. I listened to Katie Couric interviewing Joe Biden misrepresent CAP in her questioning of Joe Biden; I heard it from Mike Wallace this past sunday in his interview of Congressman Murtha, saying flat-out how the majority of Iraqis want us out as he went on to question Murtha. These people use facts filtered through the liberal lens to argue with. Flawed facts to argue themselves into flawed conclusions.
Post a Comment