MORE PREMEDITATED LIES AND POLL DISTORTIONS FROM THE LEFT

POWERLINE:

The Washington Post is trumpeting its latest poll, showing President Bush's approval rating at an "all-time low" of 45%. Actually, though, considering that the poll was of "random adults," conducted over four evenings, three of them on the weekend, with only 29% Republicans in the survey, the result is hardly surprising. In fact, Bush's approval ratings on the key issues has barely budged compared to prior Post/ABC surveys. Here is what is interesting, in the present context: the issue on which Bush scores worst is not Iraq, the economy or Social Security. It is immigration. News accounts often implicitly assume that more or less all of those who are critical of the administration are on the administration's left. In fact, though, on the issue where the President's position is least popular, the criticism comes almost entirely from the right, some of it from people who on other issues describe themselves as moderates or even liberals.

In line with that analysis, I also think that a lot of Bush's relatively low approval ratings (BELOW 50%) are because many on the right think he's way too soft on North Korea and Iran and the "Iraqi insurgents" and Abbas, and because of his utter lack of federal spending restraint. The low numbers on Iraq, especially, are low - I believe - because a lot of HAWKS (like me) think we should be MUCH more ruthless and use MUCH more massive deadly violence against the enemy there.

THIS BEARS REPEATING: the folks at the WASHPOST are certainly smart enough to know that their sample is skewed, yet they deliberately present the results in a way which depicts them as accurate. Because they are smart enough to know that a skewed sample will yield a skewed result, and because they deliberately present that skewed result as an accurate one, THIS MUST BE SEEN AS A PREMEDIATED LIE AND PURE UNADULTERATED ANTI-WAR/ANTI-BUSH LEFT-WING PROPAGANDA - and, IMHO, an instance of MSM distortion as rank as the BOGUS "TANG" documents which cost Dan Rather his job. Heads should roll at the WASHPOST - but I'm NOT holding my breath. BTW/FWIW: when it comes to lies and distortions in its news pages, the WASHPOST is not as bad as the NYTIMES.