The WMD Mailbag Correspondent breathlessly forwarded this "story" about some push poll that the BBC took. I'm not going to host the image that you see to the right, I'm going to kindly thank the BBC for that...for as long as they keep this farce active anyway.You may be asking yourself, "Self, what's a push poll?" When you put a poll out in the field with questions that guarentee a specific result, that is a push poll. And this is a push a poll.
Let's start with who they asked: Germany, Russia, and China are all great buddies with France and opposed the Iraq war because they were on the take. Canada and the UK are going to naturally support their socialist friends in France. India is just looking for somebody to counter Pakistan. Turkey looks pretty split on the issue and Japan looks to be the most indifferent country to the question. I can't say much about South Africa because that country really isn't on my political radar. Argentina and Mexico are mentioned in the article but not in the chart: one country is jealous of the US and the other is invading us, go figure. The rest of the 23 countries "surveyed" aren't mentioned specifically...
Now, let's take a look at who they didn't ask: Where is Iraq? Afghanistan? Lebanon? Israel? South Korea? Taiwan? Just to name a few...
And how about some numbers? How many people in each country were surveyed? Was it a representative sample or just the first five guys hanging around the local coffee shop?
And the accompanying analysis is just amateur hour. Here is a sample I found personally amusing:
Although 55% of US citizens felt greater European influence would be a bad thing, 34% of Americans felt the opposite - a statistic which the report's authors claim reflects deep political divisions within the US.55% to 34% is does NOT reflect "deep political divisions" it represents a clear majority of opinion. Even in a push poll, France and Europe gets smacked around... What it does reflect, is a deep resentment of European perfidy.
Here is the most absurd thing in the whole piece:
Doug Miller, of GlobeScan, said the poll was worrying for Americans.Mr. Miller is an American Idiot.
"Our survey shows that Europe's star has risen as America's has declined under the Bush administration," he said.
What this poll tells me is that we're doing it right. We are ticking off just the right people who should be ticked off: Socialists, communists, totalitarians, fascists, and dictators.
9:30AM Update
9:45AM Update
The link to the story has been added. PvP adds some more gasoline to the fire in the comments section below. Quite frankly, I'm done with this this BS, but if you're interested, help yourself to another helping...Mark's Remarks
Yes, rather than look at world results, let's look at a poll. And better yet, let's take a poll of people in nations less than friendly to the interests of the US. Now that is ingenious for proof, PvP! As usual, you prove yourself to be nothing more than a posing hack! At least PK would try to use more solid arguments (come back, PK, I enjoyed the reparte!!), but all you do is come up with weirder and more wildly insane plots and sources. It really is sad and pathetic that you so proudly write Belgium after your name, as the Belgians I know and have shared your garbage with find you to be wildly funny, but yet tragically sad at the same time.
