I found an article at FAIR that I found quite interesting. It was one that I believe was mentioned at dinner on Monday. It was by Norman Solomon and entitled "Polls give numbers, but truth is more elusive." It certainly had some good points, but the strong anti-Republican flavor of the article overshadowed the ostensible point of the article.

The article showed how slight changes in wording could radically change the results of polls, as in the case of "welfare" and "assistance to the poor." However, the author neglected the fact that in our society "welfare" has a very specific meaning that is not always synonomous with "assistance to the poor." The author was certainly right to point out that wording is critical, but any serious pollster would carefully choose his words to minimize obvious oversights like that.

Much of the rest of the article was devoted to pure and thinly-veiled blows at the Republican party and its "Contract with America." The article certainly sounds good; there are a lot of impressive-sounding quotes from people who ought to know about things like polls: editors and other information-gathering types. But almost invariably these are twisted in such a way that they serve the author's political view. Like every other critique I have seen as yet, this one uses what could be a useful topic to promote politics,

--Krista Niece