ABC News polling director responds to the ABC "telephone database" poll

[sabra]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=156238

<snip>

Per ABC News polling director Gary Langer, "These different results tell us a lot about how compelling the competing interests are. The main differences I see between this and Newsweek, vs. ours, are that we first asked about the broader investigation-vs.-privacy issue, and we laid out much more specifically the rationale for the program (to analyze call patterns in an effort to identify terrorism suspects). When these competing, positive interests are at stake, language and information matter - a fact that will surely play itself out as the debate progresses.

[wisteria]

1. Bullsh*t, the ABC poll was manipulated so that it would support

Bush and this administration. All other polls fall in line with the Newsweek poll.

[sabra]

2. plus it was the first poll to come out after the report...

[Halliburton]

3. WP felt that it deserved to be on the frontpage

even though it was BS!

[MallRat]

4. ABC/WaPo set them up and knocked them down.

Check out questions 3 and 4:

"Question 3. What do you think is more important right now - (for the federal government to investigate possible terrorist threats, even if that intrudes on personal privacy); or (for the federal government not to intrude on personal privacy, even if that limits its ability to investigate possible terrorist threats)?
5/11/06:
Investigate threats, 65%
Respect privacy, 31%"

"Question 4. It’s been reported that the National Security Agency has been collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. It then analyzes calling patterns in an effort to identify possible terrorism suspects, without listening to or recording the conversations. Would you consider this an
acceptable or unacceptable way for the federal government to investigate terrorism? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?
5/11/06:
Acceptable, 63%
Unacceptable, 35%"

First of all, question 3 is based on a false premise. The implication is that you have to choose between security and privacy, which is a gross oversimplification of the issue here.

But more importantly, by asking question 3 just prior to question 4, ABC/WaPo led the respondents to the answer. With the utterly irrelevant question #3 still in their mind, respondents were subtly prompted to answer question #4 the same way they answered #3.

In short, ABC and the Washington Post equated "investigating threats" with the NSA database.

Total and utter bullshit.

-MR

[gWbush is Mabus]

5. this is UNBELIVEABLE!!!!

this should be the top story on all the newspapers and MSM