Another Bogus Impeachment Poll
Democrats.com, billing themselves as "the aggressive progressives," are a bit aggressive with the truth. Its Impeach Them PAC is touting a new Zogby poll that purportedly finds 52% of Americans favoring impeaching Bush over the NSA wiretap matter.
The first sign something's wrong: No link to the poll topline data is provided. Second sign: Nothing about the poll on Zogby's site. Third sign: Zogby. Fourth sign: The link to the poll's sponsor is broken. Fifth sign: A scan of the poll sponsor's site, when found, revealed no story on the poll.
The sponsor, After Downing Street, is an impeachment site, and has been using Zogby for quite some time to probe the impeachment question. Typically, when this happens, sponsor and pollster get more adept at posing question, more adept in soliciting the answer they want.
So all we're left with is this, from the Democrats.com item:
Most importantly, we are given no information on who they asked, and as anyone who's studied the misuse of polls, bias in a survey starts with the questions, then goes to the makeup of the survey pool.
Throw out the manipulation, and the numbers are still very high. Many Americans have developed a picture of Bush as a president who feels he is above the law, and that image is gaining traction. It's a cause for concern -- but if Ayman al-Zawahri had just shown up for dinner, we'd have much more favorable views of US intelligence activities today.
The first sign something's wrong: No link to the poll topline data is provided. Second sign: Nothing about the poll on Zogby's site. Third sign: Zogby. Fourth sign: The link to the poll's sponsor is broken. Fifth sign: A scan of the poll sponsor's site, when found, revealed no story on the poll.
The sponsor, After Downing Street, is an impeachment site, and has been using Zogby for quite some time to probe the impeachment question. Typically, when this happens, sponsor and pollster get more adept at posing question, more adept in soliciting the answer they want.
So all we're left with is this, from the Democrats.com item:
The question is misleading because it doesn't place the domestic "wiretapping" in the context of international terrorism and overseas communications with al Qaeda. The word "wiretapping" is also misleading because it implies a more active investigation than the communications intercepts -- which listen for key words, not all words.The poll found that 52% agreed with the statement:
"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."
43% disagreed, and 6% said they didn't know or declined to answer. The poll has a +/- 2.9% margin of error.
Most importantly, we are given no information on who they asked, and as anyone who's studied the misuse of polls, bias in a survey starts with the questions, then goes to the makeup of the survey pool.
Throw out the manipulation, and the numbers are still very high. Many Americans have developed a picture of Bush as a president who feels he is above the law, and that image is gaining traction. It's a cause for concern -- but if Ayman al-Zawahri had just shown up for dinner, we'd have much more favorable views of US intelligence activities today.
posted by Laer at 8:09 AM
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