Cheat-Seeking Missles

Saturday, November 11, 2006

87% Want Bush Impeached - Really?

Whenever you see a poll that hits 87%, or anywhere close to so high a number, you know you'll only learn one thing from that poll: How to successfully deliberately bias the results.

So, what's so deceptive about MSNBC's online poll showing that 87% favor impeaching Bush?

First, the audience is skewed. It's MSNBC, for cryin' out loud. The outfit that channels the mystical Keith Olbermann is not the haunting ground of the sane, the conservative or the middle of the road.

Second, the questions are skewed. Here's the poll:
Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment?
  • Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial.
  • No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching "high crimes and misdemeanors."
  • No the man has done absolutely nothing wroing. Impeachment would just be a policital lynching.
  • I don't know.
Note first that the question doesn't ask if he should be impeached, only whether his actions justify impeachment. It's a softball set-up for the questions that follow.

Moving on, the voter is given plenty of reasons to justify "putting him on trial," not "kicking him out of office." Lots of loaded words here: secret, deceptions leading to war.

Conversely, none of the options do so well to set up a "no" response. There's no mention that we're at war and under attack. There's no mention that all foreign intelligence agencies agreed with our pre-war WMD intelligence, as did the Dems. There's no mention that "secret" means "court approved secret, or in the rare cases it wasn't, secret electronic searches used on terrorists overseas."

And if you want to vote a forceful "no," you must embrace the terribly loaded and negative word, "lynching."

So, all we can say with certainty from this poll is that media bias is alive and hard-left at MSNBC, and Bush Derangement Syndrome has hit 87% of its viewers/readers.

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