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January 7, 2006

About That Wiretapping Poll...

Hatched by Dafydd

The Associated Press is touting its own AP-Ipsos poll purporting to show a significant majority of Americans opposes the Bush administration on warrantless tapping of al-Qaeda phone calls originated abroad to their terrorist agents in the United States. But as typical these days, there is much less here than meets the eye.

The poll in today's story is very similar to the "generic congressional poll" results announced yesterday purporting to show a massive shift in Americans' support for Democratic control of Congress, a seismic shift that would signal that the Democrats are poised to seize back the House; that poll found that if the mid-term election were held today, 49% of Americans would want to see the Democrats win, while only 36% would want to see the Republicans win. Besides both polls showing a big surge towards Democrats, they have other similarities:

They have exactly the same age breakdown;

They have exactly the same employment breakdown;

Same educational breakdown;

Same marriage breakdown;

In fact, every, single demographic question is identical on the "two" surveys.

And oddly enough, they were even conducted over the same days, by the same pollsters, with the exact same number of respondents.

One might almost conclude that this was really the very same poll -- just mendaciously reported twice, in two different contexts, to make it appear as though there were a trend moving in the Democratic direction, a rising crescendo of criticism of George W. Bush. But of course, it would be dishonest for AP to do that without noting the fact, so it can't be true. It must simply be an eerie coincidence.

Another point the "two" polls share: they both wildly overpolled Democrats -- 52% of the respondents were Democrats, 40% were Republicans, and 8% were independents; that is, they polled almost a third more Democrats than Republicans.

How can this affect results? Well, it's hardly surprising that there would be a very significant difference between the responses of Democrats and Republicans to a question put so clearly in the context of partisan politics as this:

Should the Bush administration be required to get a warrant from a judge before monitoring phone and internet communications between American citizens in the United States and suspected terrorists, or should the government be allowed to monitor such communications without a warrant?

In the first place, why mention the name of the current president if you really want to know what the respondent thinks of presidential power in general? The answer is fairly clear: to make it a party issue. Democrats will immediately understand the context is Bush's Fascist depredations against civil liberties and answer accordingly.

For example, if the respondents took their cue from the reference to Bush, and if 75% of Democrats answered that Bush should have to get a warrant, while 66% of Republicans said he should not, and the paltry few independents they polled split 50-50, you would get a result strikingly similar to what they got. This doesn't prove that is how it fell out; but it's certainly not an unreasonable guess.

Second, notice the tendentious phrasing of the fact situation: the administration has repeatedly noted that the monitoring is done on al-Qaeda phone calls coming from outside the United States to persons typically not American citizens or even American persons. Occasionally, the recipient of the phone call (or e-mail) might be an American person; but the communication still originates abroad... and it is that foreign communication that is intercepted without need for a warrant. In order to monitor communications between two phone numbers both in America, a warrant is still needed... which may explain why the Bush administration has requested more than 5,600 warrants from the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court since 9/11.

As John Hinderaker put it some days ago, "if al-Qaeda is calling you, we want to know why."

That makes the NSA program not a "domestic wiretapping" case, as the Democrats and the mainstream media have repeatly and falsely claimed, but a foreign intelligence operation, for which very different legal and constitutional rules apply. Yet in this same question, respondents are asked about warrantless surveillance of electronic communications between "American citizens in the United States and suspected terrorists," which implies a completely different fact situation: tapping the phones, without warrant, of American citizens making calls that originate and terminate in the United States. Heck, even I would probably say No to that suggestion.

So the question is tendentious, in that its purpose is to elicit a negative response rather than probe the actual beliefs of Americans; in fact, it is very close to being a "push-poll," a sleazy campaign activity in which one party conducts a false poll whose purpose is to insinuate certain erroneous facts with the goal of changing people's opinions, rather than measuring them.

It is partisan, in that is clearly signals that this is a "party vote" question.

And it is argumentative, in that it subtlely alters the fact situation from what is actually happening to a different circumstance that is much less justifiable, legally and morally.

Against that backdrop, it matters very much indeed that it also significantly overpolled Democrats -- and that the respondents comprised "adults," rather than "registered voters" or "likely voters." That last is especially relevant to the other component of the same poll, the generic congressional vote. Whoops, I mean that "other" poll that has no relation to this one, despite being taken at the same time by the same pollsters of the exact same pool of respondents, of course. My bad.

This is just a longwinded way of echoing John Hinderaker's point yesterday in a post discussing the Minnesota Republican delegation to Congress joining the bandwagon calling for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) to step down as Majority Leader; at the end of the brief post, John added:

By the way, the AP/Ipsos poll referred to in this article, which gives the Democrats a 13-point lead on the generic Congressional preference question, is worthless. The poll included 52 percent Democrats and only 40 percent Republicans, so it's hardly a shock that respondents favored Democrats by the same margin.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 7, 2006, at the time of 1:28 PM

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This poll is worthless. It has been proven to be a significantly statistically flawed poll and should be discounted by everyone involved. Only the most ignorant would not see this poll was done the way it was to MAKE news. Not report it. ... [Read More]

Tracked on February 4, 2006 1:16 PM

Comments

The following hissed in response by: Bill Faith

Great post, Dafydd. I hadn't even heard about the "second" poll yet, but now I'll know how to interpret it. One quibble; I think the "If al-Qaeda is calling you, we want to know why" line is a quote from President Bush. He said that at Brook Army Medical Center a few days ago, and possibly other places as well. It's a keeper.

The above hissed in response by: Bill Faith at January 7, 2006 3:22 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Bill Faith:

Actually not. I found the actual Bush quotation; I was going to post it as an update, but I forgot.

It's close to what Hindrocket wrote... but John's misremembered version was much pithier and sharper than Bush's original -- so the honor is still Hinderaker's.

Do you have the actual quotation? I'd still like to update my post about John's quotation of the year.

Thanks,

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh at January 7, 2006 4:51 PM

The following hissed in response by: RBMN

These days, most mainstream news polls (of public opinion) seem to be just editorials by other means. And if they do screw up, and end up with the "wrong" results, we'll just not hear about the poll. Or, if there's ENOUGH bad news for President Bush, they might be willing to bury a few pro-Bush results at the end of the story--as long as it doesn't overshadow the negative.

The above hissed in response by: RBMN at January 7, 2006 10:18 PM

The following hissed in response by: lmg

Polls of Americans' actual knowledge of things (as opposed to opinions) indicate that most people can't name their congressman, can't find the U.S. on a map, and think the earth is a great flat dish borne on the back of a sea turtle swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. So the only purpose of political opinion polls such as this is to give the MSM a chance to bash Bush and claim that "most people agree with us, nyah, nyah".

The above hissed in response by: lmg at January 8, 2006 12:10 PM

The following hissed in response by: Bill Faith

Dafydd, according to http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/01/20060101.html what President Bush said was "Ed, I can say that if somebody from al Qaeda is calling you, we'd like to know why." That's from a Q&A session after he visited Brook Army Medical Center on January 1st. I agree that Mr. H. changed it for the better.

The above hissed in response by: Bill Faith at January 10, 2006 9:17 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Bill Faith:

Thanks, Bill; I remembered it was slightly different from what Hindrocket wrote!

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh at January 10, 2006 10:55 PM