Politico "practises to deceive"

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"Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!"

That famous quote by Sir Walter Scott describes the obvious intent of the latest load of moose manure from Politico:

Fox News has been making a serious charge about mainstream political reporters: They hate Sarah Palin.

This is not just wrong, it’s absurd. The reality is exactly the opposite: We love Palin.

That is just the opening shot in a long article by Jim Vandehei and Jonathan Martin. Their piece is so full of inaccuracies and misleading statements that it would take more time than it's worth to deal with each one individually. But was have selected three of the authors' deceptions from the first page to demonstrate how biased Politico is against Gov. Palin...

1. Politico: "According to the Washington Post/ABC survey, she is viewed favorably by 37 percent of Americans, while 55 percent view her unfavorably. That’s what pollsters call being “upside down,” which for an incumbent would usually spell defeat."

But she's not an incumbent, now is she? So why that last sentence, Politico? We know... 

Vandehei and Martin only cite that lone WaPo/ABC poll, one which sampled more Democrats than it did Republicans. They rather conveniently did not mention two CNN polls, one from December which found Sarah Palin's favorable/unfavorable ratings even at 46 percent each, and another from January which had her favorables at 43 percent and unfavorables at 46 percent. Both CNN polls had margins of error of plus or minus 3 percent. A Gallup Poll also taken in December had her favorables at 44 percent and unfavorables at 47 percent.

A Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 likely voters taken in the middle of November found Sarah Palin's overall favorable ratings (21% very favorable + 30% somewhat favorable) to be 51 percent, while her overall unfavorable ratings (29% very unfavorable + 14% somewhat unfavorable) to be only 43 percent. A Fox News poll, also conducted in mid-November, showed her favorables to be at 47 percent, and her unfavorables were 42 percent.

Clearly, the aggregate poll results over the past 60 days show the Washington Post/ABC poll to be an outlier. If we compute the average (mean) of all five polls, we find Sarah Palin's favorable rating to be 46 percent, and her unfavorable rating to be 45 percent. These average are quite near or within the margins of error of four of the five polls. The only poll the average is out of conformity with the the WaPo/ABC poll cited by Vandehei and Martin.

2. Politco: "What’s more, 52 percent of self-identified Republicans — more than half — said she wasn’t qualified to be president."

Again, Vandehei and Martin only cite one poll -- the flawed WaPo/ABCNews poll --
again try to make their readers believe that Sarah Palin isn't really a serious contender by generalizing from a flawed assumption.

A Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll poll of Republicans taken at the end of January asked "Do you believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be President than Barack Obama?" By an overwhelming margin of 53 percent to 14 percent, the answer was "Yes."

3. Politico: "Similar polls of Republicans don’t place her first nationally."

Again, just because Vendehei and Martin want you to believe it, It Ain't Necessarily So.

A Gallup poll of Republicans and independents released just a day ago showed Romney at 14 percent, followed closely by Gov. Palin at 11 percent. Given the survey's margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percent, that's essentially a statistical tie.

A Zogby poll released in late January found Sarah Palin leading the pace of potential GOP presidential contenders for 2012. Gov. Plain was in first place with 22.2 percent of likely Republican voters who said she was their first choice. Mitt Romney was second with 19.4 percent, and Newt Gingrich third at 12 percent.

An earlier Zogby Poll released on the first of December found that "Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is the slight favorite of Republican voters as the best candidate the party could run for President in 2012. When all voters are asked that questions, Palin falls into a three-way tie with Mitt Romney and Bobby Jindal." In the Zogby survey, Gov. Palin led Mitt Romney by nearly six points, 24.4 percent to 18.1 percent. Due to its huge sample size, this poll has a very low margin of error of just over half a percentage point (0.6 %).

That Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll conducted in late January found Sarah Palin leading Mitt Romney by five points, 16 percent to 11 percent. GOP12 reported that "Palin sweeps men and women; every age and ethnic group, and each of the delineated four regions of the country, except the Northeast where Mitt Romney leads."

The rest of the article is just as deceptive. The title Vandehei and Martin chose for this propaganda piece is:

Why the mainstream media loves Sarah Palin

Here, let us fix that for them to make it consistent with what their actual "practise" -- as Sir Walter Scott would write -- is and has always been:

Why the mainstream media loves to bash Sarah Palin

- JP