The latest polls show that a majority of Americans would favor impeaching Bush if he was found to have lied about the case for war in Iraq. Did anyone hear about this in the news lately?
From the MediaMatters article referenced by EDM:
n a November 13 column, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell addressed reader requests for the Post to conduct its own polls to measure public support for impeachment:
First, there was a swarm to me and to Post Polling Editor Richard Morin asking that The Post do a poll on whether President Bush should be impeached. Whoa. Since we get mail all the time saying that we are biased against Bush or are in his back pocket, why would The Post want to do that? The question many demanded that The Post ask is biased and would produce a misleading result, Morin said; he added that the campaign was started by Democrats.com.
But Howell’s defense doesn’t ring true. Her reference to complaints that the Post is “biased against Bush or are in his back pocket” is simply an irrelevant dodge; it has nothing to do with the question. It’s simply the same tired and lazy strategy that news organizations often fall back on in the face of criticism: saying, essentially: hey, both sides complain, so we must be doing everything right.
Further, Howell didn’t explain how “the question many demanded the Post ask is biased,” she just asserted it (attributing the assertion to Morin). But how would it be biased? Surely it must be possible to design a poll question to measure the public’s support for impeachment that isn’t “biased.” After all, the Post did it repeatedly when there was a Democratic president.
This squares well with another incident where the media intentionally distorted an article to achieve a superficial view of balance, rather than squarely calling something by its name.