James Taranto at Best of the Web Today
parses the question a bit more than I did and better than MRC or Rush.
Both the DeLay and judge results are entertaining in light of the
apoplectic coverage (“judicial jihad,” “War on Judges”, etc), maybe
providing further indication that people don’t pay attention to the
press.
Read these questions carefully and you’ll see that the
Post’s headline is false. The poll not only doesn’t use the word
filibuster; it doesn’t even describe the procedure. The way the
question is worded, the Democrats could have “blocked” the nominations
by the normal method of voting them down–and there is no reason to
think that “randomly selected adults” would have been paying enough
attention to know the difference. (Tellingly, the poll asks how closely
participants have been following the Tom DeLay kerfuffle–only 36% say
even “somewhat” closely–but does not ask the same question about the
judge issue.)
The introduction to the question should have been worded:
“. . . Senate Democrats have used a procedure called the
filibuster to block a vote on 10 others.” As it is, this poll is either
a very sloppy bit of work or a deliberate attempt to mislead the Post’s
readers–including members of the U.S. Senate.
