Pew Sugar-Coats Survey On Muslims

Here's the lead to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life news release on its new survey of America's view of religion:

The July 7 terrorist bombings in London drew considerable public attention and raised fears of another attack in the United States, but these concerns do not translate into less favorable opinions of either Muslim-Americans or Islam. And compared with 2003, fewer now say that Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence.

Pew, one of the Big Left Eight non-profits, appears to be promoting goodwell toward Muslims. Well and good, if it were factual. Their own survey rebuts their news release's lead. How do they explain the answers they got to this question, #47 in their survey instrument:

The Islamic religion is more likely than others to encourage violence among its believers?
2002: 25%
2003: 44%
2004: 46%

-OR

The Islamic religion does not encourage violence more than others ?
2002: 51%
2003: 41%
2005: 37%

Moral: Never, ever, ever believe what biased bsurvey firms say about their surveys. h/t Soxblog via Powerline.

Update: Max Boot looks at the same survey, ignores the Pew press release, and writes a column about the decreasing popularity of terrorism, increasing popularity of America, and decreasing popularity of America's enemies, in the Muslim world. Amazing.