Tony Snow on polls:
“The third news-cycle pox: Polls. Polls provide a ripe source for conflict because pollsters regularly reduce complex questions to queries of mind-numbing simplicity: Do you want America out of the war? Would you like it if the government guaranteed health care? Should the government guarantee full employment? Should we spend more on education? Should we cut your taxes? The answer to each of the above is, “Well, sure!” But note that the questions are asked in a vacuum, as if the object of a respondent’s desire could be had for free, without consequences. Pollsters routinely ask if people would like something unobtainable - guaranteed employment, for example - and politicians take the wistful answers as holy writ. Someone opposed to a guaranteed employment scheme can expect to be accused of supporting joblessness or hating the poor, at which point the mud would fly on both sides - all because of a poll question based on an idiotic assumption. Dumb questions beget dumb debate. In short, media organizations have been seduced by process, conflict and polling stories, and along the way have sacrificed the tradition of looking for creative ways to understand and explain the world. They have become hostages to the easy and shallow stuff and strangers to stories that touch people’s hearts and characterize their actual lives. Indeed, journalists seem to have developed an elitist contempt for the daily concerns of viewers, listeners and readers - and the public has noticed. This explains the across-the-board slippage in newspaper circulation, and viewership of broadcast and cable news.”
Dear God, how I miss Tony Snow!
Do you have any idea of what Tony would say to all these FReepers who willingly help Obama?
Your citing him is wonderful. Thank You!