Polls say, It’s the Neocons’ fault
Monday, September 29th, 2008 By Mike Maurer
There are so many dirty little secrets to polling that it’s hard to know where to start, but one of the most basic is, is there any reason to think the people being polled have any idea of what they’re talking about?
What’s the validity of a poll about, say, the cause of the space shuttle exploding? If we take a worldwide poll and it concludes that the earth rests on the back of a giant turtle, does it mean anything, other than that people don’t know what they’re saying?
The BBC has been reporting all morning in an orgiastic ecstasy of righteousness, “US-led efforts to tackle the al-Qaeda group are not regarded as successful”
Or, “US-led efforts to tackle the al-Qaeda group are not regarded as successful, an opinion poll carried out for the BBC World Service suggests.”
Under the heading, of “Terror Stalemate,” BBC reports that twice as many people (22%) think the US is winning as think al-Qaeda is winning (10%). That’s a stalemate?
On the other hand, a plurality of people think it has made al-Qaeda stronger (30%), not weaker (22%). Interesting; this seems to run in a different direction than the idea that the U.S. is winning. But what does “stronger” mean? And if it is stronger, why? Did they ask whether al-Qaeda would have been stronger had the U.S. not responded to the World Trade Center attacks? If that’s true, it’s an awfully Zen view of the world. Did they ask when the war on terror began? Did it begin with Bush, or did it begin when the towers were attacked? If it began when the towers were attacked, isn’t the idea that al-Qaeda is stronger because of the war on terror a bit different than if it began when the United States responded? Wouldn’t al-Qaeda continue to be perceived as stronger even if the US hadn’t responded? Indeed, is there a fair possibility that it would be perceived as even stronger than it is perceived now?
As between the two major themes, US winning, al-Qaeda stronger, which do you suppose the BBC chose to emphasize with its main graphic? That the US is winning? Er, maybe not.
But really, the whole thing is garbage. What they should really do is tease out ignorance. If they had the stones, the integrity or even the curiosity, they’d ask a question such as, “Do you think world Jewry is behind the war on terror?” or some such and publish that result. If the result was that 50 percent or 60 percent of the world answered yes, or 30 percent answered yes with 50 percent answering don’t know and 10 percent answering no, would that make it true? Or would it just give the lie to the whole effort and kill the story?
Probably the poll does tell us something: That the BBC has been reporting the news overly negatively against the United States and overly positively towards al-Qaeda. Other than that, though, not much. It can be summed up as garbage in, garbage out.
