Extreme Media Follies

Here’s a poll with some seriously confused respondents.

Most Americans believe news coverage is biased and negative, but they also say they respect journalists and trust what they hear and read.

A national survey conducted by the Missouri School of Journalism's Center for Advanced Social Research found 62% consider journalism credible and more than half rated newspapers and television news as trustworthy.

At the same time, 85% said they detect a bias in news reporting.

Nearly half – 48% - believe the bias they perceive is liberal. Which is fairly impressive given the tilt of the pollster in question.

To call these results cognitive dissonance doesn’t begin to describe them. But they can, I think, be attributed to the spin skill wielded by the extreme press, when they aren’t, you know, faking memos and defaming U.S. soldiers.

And that spin is relentless.

Here’s a case in point:

There they go again, still desperately trying to undermine the war effort.

A deluge of press reports yesterday claimed that Iraq Survey Group chief Charles Duelfer has determined that Saddam Hussein never shipped any of his weapons of mass destruction to Syria and other Middle Eastern countries.

But that's not what Duelfer said at all.

In a report available on the CIA Web site, the weapons prober explains:

"Some uncertainties remain and some information will continue to emerge about the WMD programs or the former Regime. Reports cited in the Comprehensive Report concerning the possible movement of WMD or WMD materials from Iraq prior to the war remain unresolved."

In other words, the extreme media is once again citing absence of evidence as evidence of absence. The two are not remotely the same thing.

Ed Morrissey puts the matter in proper perspective:

What does this tell us? First, by its inclusion in the addenda and not the main body, it tells us ... nothing. The data remains inconclusive, and that's all. ISG could not go into Syria, nor into the Bekaa Valley that until this week was controlled by Syria, to determine if any kind of transfers took place. The only conclusion they could reach is that official transfers never took place, meaning that Saddam's files contained no records of any such movement of materiel between Iraq and Syria. The report further tells us that had the ISG had the time and resources to follow up on the leads provided, they still probably would find out nothing, given the geopolitical difficulties of invading Syria to complete the investigation.

Had Duelfer and the ISG meant to conclusively state that no WMD transfers of any kind had occurred, it would not have been left as a footnote or an addendum. That usage indicates an explanation for an unfulfilled mandate of the mission, not a positive conclusion, as a close read of the language used indicates.

To extrapolate from an aphorism, it is difficult to find a horse long after it has escaped its stall and leaped the corral fence. But the extreme media would have us believe that there was never a horse at all.

But that is old news, despite the lib propagandists’ stubborn unwillingness to let it go, to say nothing of admitting defeat. For a more contemporary gambit, try this:

As the Senate moves toward a major confrontation over judicial appointments, a strong majority of Americans oppose changing the rules to make it easier for Republican leaders to win confirmation of President Bush's court nominees, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

[B]y a 2 to 1 ratio, the public rejected easing Senate rules in a way that would make it harder for Democratic senators to prevent final action on Bush's nominees.

This is, not to put too fine a point on it, bull[bleep].

And as usual with extreme media polls, it’s all in how you phrase the questions.

Brother Hinderaker agrees:

[H]ere is the question the pollsters asked: "Would you support or oppose changing Senate rules to make it easier for the Republicans to confirm Bush's judicial nominees?" That is an absurd question, to which I would probably answer "No," too. The way the question is framed, it makes it sound like a one-way street, as though the Republicans wanted to change the rules to benefit only Republican nominees. If they asked a question like, "Do you think that if a majority of Senators support confirmation of a particular nominee, that nominee should be confirmed?" the percentages would probably reverse.

Pollster Scott Rasmussen did ask the question that way:

When asked if Senate rules should be changed to give every nominee a vote, 56% say yes and 26% say no. [my emphasis]

Wow, that’s the polar opposite of what ABC and the WaPo are claiming. Not that it’s a surprise or anything. They had a story they wanted to publish (“Americans overwhelmingly oppose any Republican attempt to change Senate rules to end the filibustering of judicial nominees”), and so they commissioned a poll that was as slanted as it had to be to produce the results that fit their angle. It’s pure left-wing propaganda, or what Hugh Hewitt likes to call “agenda journalism.”

An emailer to Rush Limbaugh may have captured media extremism best:

"This is not a push poll, this is a push-up poll. It's sort of like these phony lacy bras that try to make women look like they have more than they have. The media is now push-up polling trying to make it look like they have more than they have."

Pity the “boobs” are mostly on our side of the aisle.