Headline Bottom Line: Liars!

Following up on their rude announcement of Condi's hearings, the LATimes welcomed President Bush to his inauguration tomorrow with not one but two page one stories on poll results that, they say, paint a dreary picture for the president.

The top story was on opinion on the war in Iraq (Hugh's got a good piece on that story), followed by the object of my headline distain, an article headlined: "Americans remain polarized over Bush."

The headline makes it clear: The LATimes thinks Bush is a polarizing president. How, then, do they explain their own data:

Do you think President Bush has been less,
more or about as partisan as other presidents?
Less: 22%
More: 25%
Same: 47%
Don't know: 6%

Sixty-nine percent of those surveyed don't think the president is any more partisan than, say, Clinton, yet the Times say he's dividing the nation. How can Bush be polarizing if he's not particularly partisan? The answer is that the headline should have read:

"Americans remain polarized, but don't blame Bush."

But what fun would the Leftybrats at the LAT have had with that?