Polls and the Mainstream Media

I recently read a poll conducted, ostensibly, to determine the level of support for the President’s handling of the war in Iraq. The results were overwhelmingly negative toward the Bush administration’s conduct of the war.

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

With the MSM constantly beating the drum against the war and playing up every US loss of life, running box scores in their print publications, and in general, spewing propaganda that the war has become a quagmire, what else would you expect the public to say?

I, too, am not happy with the conduct of the war. My opinion is, however that we are not using our military aggressively enough. We are not constantly on the attack, burning, hacking and slashing as we go leaving a trail of death and destruction in our wake that will get the attention of the entire Muslim world.

At the same time, I would eschew the “Nation Building" policy now in place, in Iraq, and let them put their own country back together… if they can. I am of the mind that a country’s destruction should be a part of the payment extracted for attacking the US, period. (That proverbial “pound of flesh”, if you will.)

I want to see a poll asking the simple question: What is it about the way the President is handling the war in Iraq do you not approve of? Now that is THE question!

Anyone having ever been connected to the media understands that polls can easily be made to produce the results you are seeking. A simple slant of the wording of the question will get you any result you want. Pollsters know this... and those who commission pollsters know it… and sad to say… they use it.

Nowadays, more and more of the mainstream media are using polls to editorialize against the Bush administration. You see, a president they hate is in office and they have been determined, from day one of his first term, to bottle him up, and show him and his administration in the worst light possible.

It is a shame and a disgrace! But that is the level to which the MSM has sunk in the US.

If you want to get a balanced view of the news of the US you must go “off-shore” to a foreign news outlet to get it. That, too, is a shame.

More and more Americans are turning to the Internet for their news. The "Alternate News Source", some call it. I, myself, have found that I spend more and more time following news stories on the Internet than I do the newspapers or TV news. I get a more “in depth" coverage and I get more “accurate” and “neutral” reporting on the ‘net.

As the 2006 election approaches the slander campaign against the Republicans and the Bush administration will only increase in intensity. Watch for it. Don’t be surprised by it, and remember, you can get the news… from the Internet!

“Longstreet”