Twisted Polls Create Twisted Impressions

Someone named Dean Barnett posts on Hugh Hewitt's blog about what he calls the "Most Depressing Poll Ever."

Apparently, it was a FOX News Poll, and listen to this twisted, manipulative poll question. I don't feel like this records any particular feeling, just people's attempts to convey their opinion within the odd confines of the format:

Do you personally want the Iraq plan President Bush announced last week to succeed?

As you can imagine, the results of such a twisted question (we already know that most people do NOT want to allow the escalation to go through, and so their response to this will be seriously clouded by that) are somewhat negative. The results:

Overall: 63% Yes 22% No 15% Don’t Know

Democrats: 51% Yes 34% No 15% Don’t Know

Republicans: 79% Yes 11% No 10% Don’t Know

Independents 63% Yes 19% No 17% Don’t Know

Dean continues, offering his solemn and serious analysis.

Friends, I’ll allow you a minute to wrap your minds around this, for we are truly through the looking class. Even though we have some 150,000 troops in harm’s way and we universally profess to “support the troops,” over 1/3 of our society either wants them to fail or doesn’t know if they want them to succeed. Even more chilling are the results regarding our currently dominant political party. 49% of Democrats either want us to lose in Iraq or “don’t know” if they want us to succeed.

I would love to hear why losing in Iraq would be in the national interest. And I would love to hear the humanitarian justification for leaving Baghdad’s civilians to the tender mercies of the murderous militias and terrorists that stalk that city.

And I would also love to hear Democratic leaders respond to these poll numbers. But I won’t hold my breath.

The main problem here is the Bush refuses to define "success" or "victory," so questions like this make no sense. Also, as I said, the strongest reaction to the "plan" last week was a reaction of the plan, so if folks reject the premise, asking them about the results of it are out of place.

If I were to even ask the Poll question "Do you want America to succeed in Iraq?" there would probably be folks that say "no." But again, that question would also make no sense, because it's based on a strange movie-based view of the world. Polls need to be more specific.

Do you want America to find the Pony?