It seems like major media outlets take polls every single week. Actually, they pretty much do. This week, the New York Times released an article that claims that Americans agree with Democrats on major issues. To support this claim, they used polling data from a poll they conducted the previous week.

Whether or not media outlets are biased is a matter of much debate, but an objective look at the most recent NY Times poll turns up some shoddy reporting, regardless of motive.

In their article, the New York Times claimed that "more than half the respondents said they opposed a centerpiece of Mr. Bush's tax cut plan, the elimination of a tax on dividends, which Democrats have used to portray Mr. Bush as a friend of the rich."

There were only two questions that mentioned dividends. One was whether or not the subject paid dividends on stock that they owned. The other question was "Do you think stock holders should pay taxes on their stock dividends or not?" Response showed that 52% felt that stock holders "should pay taxes" and 38% felt that stock holders "should not" pay taxes.

Of course, anyone with general accounting knowledge knows that stock holder dividends are already taxed TWICE; first as corporate income, and then again as shareholder income. As a stock holder myself, I don't think I should receive dividends tax free, but that doesn't translate into opposition of President Bush's dividend tax cut. The NY Times assumes that it does.

The NY Times poll was also full of questions without collectively exhaustive or mutually exclusive answers:

If you had to choose, would you prefer reducing the federal budget deficit or cutting taxes?

If you had to choose, would you prefer preserving programs like Social Security and Medicare or cutting taxes?

Which do you think is better way to improve the national economy: cutting taxes or reducing the federal budget deficit?

The questions assume that these are either-or choices, and 'both' is not listed as an answer. In fact, it is possible to reduce the deficit AND cut taxes. It is possible to preserve Social Security/Medicare AND cut taxes.

The Times, however, offers up only two choices, as if they are the only possible answers. When a majority of the people select the answer that they want to hear, they make the claim that "a majority of the poll's respondents - including 49 percent of Republicans - said reducing the deficit would be more likely to revive the economy than would cutting taxes." The Times tries to convey that even Republicans think that a tax cut is a bad idea, when in fact, most conservatives probably want the deficit reduced AND a cut in taxes.

On the foreign policy front, the Times is even more incompetent. They asked "Which of these do you think represents the greater threat to peace and stability -- Iraq, North Korea, or terrorists such as Al Qaeda?" The choices allowed were Iraq, N. Korea, Al Qaeda, All equal, or None. Al Qaeda was the obvious choice for greatest threat, which led the Times to claim that "while the public said they viewed Iraq as a bigger threat to world peace than North Korea, reflecting the White House view, respondents named Al Qaeda as the biggest threat of all." The assumption is that the Al Qaeda organization is mutually exclusive of both Iraq and N. Korea. Since Al Qaeda is a fluid organization with members from numerous countries (including the U.S.), it isn't fair to compare it even-handedly to independent sovereign nations. It would be like asking who is a greater risk, Al Qaeda or the Taliban? Arafat, Hamas, or the Fatah movement? (FYI, Arafat leads the Fatah movement.)

Most damning of all, is what the New York Times leaves out. The poll asks "Do you think Iraq probably does or probably does not have weapons of mass destruction that the U.N. weapons inspectors have not found yet?" The results of which were: Does, will find: 37%; Does, will not find: 48%; Does not: 4%; and NA: 11%. Clearly, 85% of Americans think Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Only 4% think they do not, less than the 11% that didn't know or didn't answer the question.

That is a pretty significant figure, but the New York Times didn't even think it was worth mentioning in their article.