Sneaky Lou Dobbs

Making a regularly scheduled visit to Eschaton, I see his latest “Torture Lou Dobbs.” Always happy to strike a blow against pseudo-science, I quickly followed the link to Dobbs’ latest poll. Here are the questions:

LOU DOBBS TONIGHT QUICKVOTE

Whose view of the situation in Iraq do you believe most?

• Bush administration’s
• Congressional Democrats’
• Media’s
• United Nations’

It’s a clear attempt to fracture the oppostion vote (e.g. 65% against Bush would be split at about 22% for each of the three non-Bush choices, so Bush’s 35% would be the “winner”–“by more than a 50% margin” would be technically true but disingenuous). For example, the announced result would be “our latest internet poll shows that more people believe Bush’s view of the Iraq situation than believe Congressional Democrats’/United Nations’/Media’s.” Cleverly, Dobbs would likely only compare Bush to one of the alternatives at a time, but never compare the votes for Bush to the non-Bush votes, nor say anything like, “65% rejected Bush’s view”.

Given the choices, I was indecisive for a bit. Briefly, remembering that the point is to frustrate Dobbs rather than express my view, I was stuck trying to figure out which in Dobbs’ book would be the greater evil. Then I remembered that of the three, only the United Nations controls black helicopters and blue helmets, and voted.

As it turns out, Atrios’ readers are legion, as well as too clever to fall for Dobbs ploy: the current tally is UN 49%, Democrats 27%, Media 16%, and Bush 8%. The fracturing did work somewhat, but not well enough for Bush to come out ahead. Look for the choices in a future Dobbs poll to be Congressional Democrats, the Media, Howard Dean, The United Nations, Wesley Clark, Nader, Gray Davis, Noam Chomsky, Al-Jazeera, the BBC, NPR, PBS, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CalPundit, and George Bush.

AB