The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

See? B.S.!

Posted on | July 18, 2011 | 15 Comments

Ed Morrissey does an excellent evisceration of a blatantly deceptive CBS News poll:

Have Democrats leaped to an eleven-point registration advantage in the last five weeks?  In early June, a CBS News poll showed a D/R/I sample of 30/30/40, which undersampled both parties slightly in favor of independents, even weighting it to slightly favor Republicans. In their latest poll today on the debt ceiling debate, CBS offers one of its most egregious poll samples in recent memory to pursue the “public blames the GOP” meme . . .

Read the whole thing. I will add only two points that I’ve made before about how polling data is often misinterpreted:

  1. “Random adults” don’t matter in politics. Any poll on a political topic that surveys mere “adults” — as opposed to registered voters or, preferably, well-screened likely voters — is utterly worthless. People who don’t vote, don’t matter. Any poll that doesn’t make some attempt to screen out non-voters tells you nothing useful about the political landscape. And also, non-voters are more liberal than average.
  2. Early polling is always deceptive. Public opinion of political issues in July of an off-year is a poor measure of where voter sentiment will be 16 months from now on Election Day 2012.

In the most recent election eight months ago, Republicans won a historic landslide and there is no reason to believe now, in mid-July, that Americans have suddenly shifted toward the Democrats. What CBS News did with that poll is as big a lie as RatherGate, and they should be ashamed of themselves for promoting dishonest propaganda while pretending to report the news.

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Category: CBS, Hot Air, Media Bias, Polls

Comments

  • Pingback: CBS is still see BS « Don Surber

  • DaveO

    The poll only has to fool the Ignoratti. These are the one who win elections.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Dan-Gillen/1366479171 Dan Gillen

    that’s why obama’s approval numbers are junk they switched to random adults a long time ago.  

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    It is also worthy of note that even after the 1995 government shutdown debacle, widely assumed to have been won by Clinton the “Triangulator,” the GOP only lost 8 seats in the House and actually gained two seats in the Senate.  Clinton was reelected, true, but again with a mere plurality, and the weakness of Dole as a national candidate was without doubt a major factor.

    Failure to raise the debt ceiling will result in default – at least technically as the ratings agencies see it; in fact we need nearly double the cuts being proposed now over the next ten years to avoid a downgrade of our paper.  Obama will get the blame at the polls for the chaos, but it will be a Pyrrhic victory as the higher interest rates will make our debt hole almost impossible to climb out of in any reasonable time, if ever.

    The Ryan budget plan does contain enough cuts to maintain our bond rating, but nobody even talks about it anymore. 

    Me?  I’m buying ammo.

  • http://kingshamus.wordpress.com/ KingShamus

    If CBS News had any shame, they would’ve packed it when Rather shit the mattress back in 2004.

  • Finrod Felagund

    This is why the only pollster whose numbers I don’t immediately question is Rasmussen, because he’s very good at polling Likely Voters, which is the gold standard in predicting elections.  Pollsters who poll ‘Adults’ are incompetent, horribly biased, or both.

  • Anonymous

    All thinking consumers must prioritize spending.

    Resistance is not futile.

  • http://pumping-irony.livejournal.com/ Wilbur Post

    During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. — George Orwell

    This is OBVIOUSLY a time of universal deceit…..

  • daveinboca

    CBS rivals PPP in their devotion to the DNC party line.

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  • http://gripernews.blogspot.com Wisco

    It’s the conservative way: if you don’t like the findings, attack the findings. Facts are for elitists.

    Never mind that polling has shown the GOP to be holding the losing hand for quite some time now:

    http://people-press.org/2011/05/04/section-7-the-budget-deficit-taxes-spending-and-entitlements/

    http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1624

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/148472/Deficit-Americans-Prefer-Spending-Cuts-Open-Tax-Hikes.aspx

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_03142011.html

    But hey, if the body of proof isn’t proof enough, that’s hardly anything new, is it? After all, the body of proof points to global warming and evolution, right?

    As I said, facts are for elitists.

  • http://twitter.com/smitty_one_each Chris Smith

    Sure, Wisco: Gore is an elitist, and he has spewed much hooey under the label ‘fact’. So one must agree: ‘facts’ are for elitists.

  • Pingback: Will the Adult in the Room Please Stand Up? | The Lonely Conservative

  • Anonymous

    Do they even pretend to report the news? I thought it was a given today that the Main Stream Democratic Media always presented a lefticle point of view.

  • John Galt

    The other two (old) networks should have been named “Hear B.S.” and “Speak B.S.”

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