Gallup To Release Poll On Torture Probe That Pundits Will Ignore
This is some pretty amazing timing. At the moment when we’re learning the lurid details of the Bush torture program and discovering that Obama and the Senate Democratic leadership are cool to some kind of truth commission, Gallup is about to release a poll telling us where the American people stand on whether there should be a probe:
An official at Gallup confirms that the polling firm will be conducting a survey this weekend on criminal investigations into the Bush years. The survey, likely to be released on Monday afternoon, will provide one the first measures of public sentiment on this topic since Barack Obama suggested he would be open to an independent commission investigating the use of now-outlawed interrogation techniques.
Elizabeth Mendes, an associate editor at Gallup, says the survey will ask “how closely people have been following the news about this issue, if they think the techniques were justified, and if they think there should be an investigation.”
How will the D.C. media establishment greet the results? My bet: If majorities say they favor a probe, the news orgs will report the results and it’ll make a short term media splash. Then pundits will promptly forget the poll ever existed.
After all, when Gallup last polled the question in mid-February, fully 62% favored some kind of investigation, criminal or otherwise, into torture — and that was before the torture memos came out. And yet pundits still continue to claim that a probe is desired only by the “hard left.”
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But they will definitely play up the Rasmussen poll that says a majority thinks the President hurt national security by releasing the memos. Of course the poll was a false choice between whether it hurt national security or helped our image around the world but hey who needs details.
I’ll be more interested in how much coverage the new photos get, and to what degree the point is made that sanctioned torture was widespread.
And what is Greg’s excuse for ignoring said Rasmussen poll? Physician heal thyself.
More to the point, the Rasmussen poll also addresses Greg’s concern about probes:
“Only 28% of U.S. voters think the Obama administration should do any further investigating of how the Bush administration treated terrorism suspects. Fifty-eight percent (58%) are opposed . . . 62% of voters not affiliated with either major party are against more investigating.”
I’m sure Greg will remind us of these results if he trumpets the Gallup results next week . . .
Very interesting reading
.
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/24/why-dont-they-claim-al-nashiris-waterboarding-worked/#more-4019
A little torture is good for the soul.
sgwhite: Interesting but …
“Confessions aren’t the point. Intelligence is. Interrogation is conducted by using such obvious approaches as asking questions whose correct answers are already known and only when truthful information is provided proceeding to what may not be known. Moreover, intelligence can be verified, correlated and used to get information from other detainees, and has been; none of this information is used in isolation.”
sbj:
The reason why reputable outfits do not cite Rasmussen’s non- election polling is because it is bought and paid for by the right and generally consists of push polls.
Rasmussen is often Rasmuddle. But not to bother. Official Washington is in three monkeys mode: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
sbj –
Here are the questions on that poll, which as always (since Rasmussen was ridiculously wrong in its election polling) are incredibly vague and intend to mislead the person being polled:
Did the United States torture terrorism suspects?
42% Yes
37% No
21% Not sure
Comment – if 37% of the people who were polled believe that the US did not torture then god help them. I’ll take it a step further – since the conservative narrative has now moved from “we don’t torture” to justifying torture “if it saves American lives” then you can throw out the 37% and just make the yes 100% since all sides seem to be admitting it is a fact now.
3*Should the Obama administration do more investigating to find out how the Bush administration treated terrorism suspects?
28% Yes
58% No
13% Not sure
Comment – Incredibly misleading. First off it doesn’t ask the person being polled if they are aware that the Obama administration is not going to be investigating the bush administration, and in fact it’s not their job – it’s the DOJ’s (or an independent prosecutor’s) job, which is independent of the obama administration for all intents and purposes. So really, you can argue that mixed in that 58% (which would include me, if I were polled) is a number of people that would say no precisely because it isn’t the Obama admin’s job to do it – it’s an independent entity’s job, one who is neutral from all sides. Also, the use of the qualifier MORE. This implies that an investigation has already started/been done. So also mixed in this 58% could be people who are supportive of current investigations, but don’t think that there needs to be anything going on beyond what the DOJ is currently looking into (which again would also include me). Starting to wonder what the real mindset of that 58% is, aren’t ya?
4* Does the release of CIA memos on interrogation techniques help the image of the United States abroad or does it endanger the national security of the United States?
28% Helps the image of the United States abroad
58% Endangers the national security of the United States
14% Not sure
Comment – what the hell? Obviously this doesn’t help our image, but then the only other option is that it endangers national security??? Where’s the option for “it doesn’t change anything”? And don’t try to sell me the story that “not sure” would be acceptable for that choice.
Okay so I just wasted a lot of time there but the point is, this is a horrible poll done by a polling firm that has become completely unreliable to the point that only the right wing blogosphere has been able to pick up on it and that even the horrible MSM has refused to cite. I think after their complete misreading of public opinion during the campaign it was the nail in their coffin.
Gallup is a much better indicator of where the public stands on this issue, and Greg is right to complete ignore the Rasmussen poll. It sucks, and you can see why as I outlined above.
Anwyay. Carry on
PS–correction: I am confusing Rass with Zogby. My apologies. You can ignore my comments about the election polls. He does a good job there. But the rest of my points on the questioning and the potential for the results to be skewed stand.
Unfortunately for Zarik and Mary, Greg Sargent himself has used Rasmussen polls when they have suited his purposes.
D’oh!
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/president-obama/poll-gop-leaders-have-low-favorable-ratings-among-republicans/
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/bipartisanship/poll-more-now-think-obama-is-partisan-dem-and-his-approval-rating-is-up/
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/poll_more_than_a_third_of_dems.php
BTW, I agree that the question about hurting nat’l security is a false choice. The question about doing more investigating seems valid to me, however.
The bigger point is that there is already a poll out there regarding attitudes toward a probe, most are against it according to Rasmussen, Greg is preemptively accusing other media outlets of ignoring a Gallup poll while he himself ignores a Rasmussen poll, and he has used the Rasmussen poll in the past when they support his opinions.
While my previous comment awaits moderation perhaps I can slip this one in . . . Greg Sargent has used Rasmussen polls in the past when the results have suited his purposes.
Forget the polls, are you pro-torture? or are you pro-law? Torture is against the law and as a nation of laws we are ill-served by ignoring crimes against the law – think Jim Crow of Joe Turner! -Kevo
sbj -
As I said in my followup/correction, Rasmussen did a very good job of polling for the election. I did a search for Rasmussen and nothing came up in the search results here that Greg wrote, so if you’re referring to Greg’s work at TPM, then I don’t see why Greg WOULDN’T use them. Rasmussen doesn’t really have a chance to create vague/misleading questions on election based questions–it’s simply “mccain or obama,” and it appears the push polling actually works for election polling.
However with more complicated questions that don’t have cut and dry “yes or no” answers, the approach completely fails. To cut costs, Rasmussen asks its poll qs via pre-recorded messages and then asking “push 1 for a or 2 for b.” That’s fine when choosing between 2 candidates. But as these questions are not cut and dry, as I illustrated above, there is no operator to clarify the question for the poll taker (as most polls would do) and thus Rasmussen data reported for non-election polling is incredibly suspect.
PS – that should read “push polling doesn’t work for election polling” in my comment above.
People seem so polarized on this that it will be difficult for many answering the poll to keep sight of the facts. For instance, America has waterboarded exactly 3 terrorists. Most trying to keep up on the stories of overblown outrage however, would be hard pressed to tell you that. To echo what has already been said, knee jerk reaction to vague questions will reveal nothing. I don’t see how this poll can sensibley balance the expression of both our daunting ideals and the very ugly realities we face.
Example: the waterboardees were:
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: 9/11 mastermind responsible for killing some 3,000 Americans.
Abu Zubaydah: Key terrorist recruiter, operational planner and member of Osama Bin Laden’s inner circle.
“His central position makes him a potential mine of vital information about the names and locations of al-Qaeda members as well as any future attacks”–BBC NEWS 2 April, 2002
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri: Operational planner for 9/11 and organizer of the attacks against the USS Cole also killing 17 of it’s American crew.
Yes, on one hand we did pour water on them. On the other, they were 3 high ranking terrorists all connected with 9/11. We did so in the hope of getting this ‘vital information’ for one reason, to make damn good and sure such devastating losses would not happen again. We in fact, may have saved lives at the cost of some of our ideals.
Undeniably–NO ATTACKS HAVE HAPPENED SINCE.
As a result though, we are evidently now content to conduct the petty politics of placing Obama’s ACLU image above that of America’s National Security which, still seems a little like complete madness in the face of expert opinion even though no further attacks have occurred.
As for the 9/11 attacks vs. waterboarding 3 known murderers, I would point out that none were pulverized or incinerated alive in ash and rubble. Not one was forced to jump to his death from a burning building. Not one (on a plane or outside the towers) heroically and knowingly chose to try and save their fellow countrymen and died. And not one in the grief stricken aftermath was forced to try and pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. Instead, we got them wet.
In my estimation and for right now team Obama needs to ease off it’s imagemania, put and end to this petty partisan **** as promised and cut to the chase by getting a serious and tangible grip on the realities of it’s first and foremost duty to protect American lives. I would however welcome any non-public investigation and possible action for wrong doing in the event that the experts are right and a public hearing would compromise onging National Security matters as they have clearly stated from the onset.
What I do not now, and never will beleive is that the ACLU is qualified to make demands for anything from outside the NS loop at all and Obama never, ever should have caved into them.
Will this poll be able to reflect any of that?
Dennis, would you care to comment on this weekend’s revelations from many of those in the FBI and in fact one former interrogator who actually got solid intelligence from his questioning of KSM (and/or Zubaidah, can’t remember), that their methods of questioning were working 100% without having to use force in their interrogating. And then the CIA stepped in and started using enhanced techniques around late 2002, and the FBI stepped away because they anticipated this fallout?
Would you also care to comment on the CIA’s claim that the intelligence we received from the detainees could have been obtained without torturing these individuals?
The point is, the argument that “it saves lives” doesn’t hold up because it’s becoming clear that this information was coming through loud and clear and was valid, without torture, and could have continued to have been obtained, without torture.
All torture seems to have done, other than get the same information, is possibly give incorrect information that someone will spit out just to stop the pain.
Finally, we signed international treaties (Ronald Reagan did, in fact) agreeing not to participate in this sort of behavior. We executed members of other countries for doing the same thing to our soldiers. So by your logic, we should disregard our international agreements and what we have denounced other countries for doing.
Basically, in your ideal world, the US now looks like a bunch of hypocrites. We look like a laughingstock when we get up on our soapbox and tell other countries to follow international law and treaties, because we don’t even follow our own. That’s what you want, right? Regardless of the fact that yes, these men are confirmed terrorists, that’s what you’d be getting if we went down your path.
Here’s an interesting comment I saw left on Broder’s disgusting WaPo article today (Broder the hack who was all about investigations for Bill C’s sexual habits, all about Nixon being the greatest president ever in the late 60s, but now thinks carrying out the law is SCAPEGOATING).
“longbow65 wrote:
If I know about a group of fanatics planning to ram an airplane into a skyscraper,or set a bomb off in a crowdwed public place, you better hope someone has the nerve to do it to me. I am more than certain it would not be you.
==
Response – BFD. Four times that many die every day from illnesses related to smoking. Yeah get all outraged an’ stroke yourselves into a white heat of passion about America and Bad Mans and demand that our freedoms be abridged in the name of security, and scream traitor at anyone with morals.
You guys suck.
America has been ******** with the Middle East for generations. So they got us back just once. It was eight years ago, you plan to ever get over it?
We didn’t even go after the perpetrators, all we did was invade a country that had nothing to do with it and all but assure that it happens again.”
This is all Monday morning quarterbacking. Time to move on. “Harsh interrogation methods” first came to light back when Rummy was SecDef – it’s old news. Obama can move on and do great things for the country, or get stuck in the muck of ongoing 20/20 hindsight.
I don’t agree with torture. I am sure there are rare, unique times where harsh methods may be called for – but they are few & far between.
It is time to put the previous 8yrs to bed and move to the future.
It does, however, show the strength of our nation to discuss it. I don’t remember these discussion when they were throwing VC out of choppers. Now that was harsh.
Yes, let’s move on indeed. Move on until 8 years later, when the same thing is going to happen again. Nothing should be put to bed until we show that there is accountability, otherwise after Obama’s gone someone will do this thing again. Any response to that, or are you OK with having someone else be able to torture down the road?
these discussions are what seperates our country from many of the others on this Earth. Same with Abu Grab & Hadaitha – we’re willing to talk, investigate and learn. Shame so many others won’t.