Enough's Enough, America

There comes a time in history when an adult enters the fray of uncivil discourse, shakes America by her broad shoulders, and admonishes everyone that enough is enough. I'm uncertain whether former President Jimmy Carter is that heroic adult.

Carter in an interview Tuesday and later in an address to his own forum said Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie" outburst to President Barack Obama during a speech to Congress last week was an act "based on racism" and rooted in fears a black man is incapable of being president.

I'm up to my neck with disgust every time an argument degenerates when the race, gender, religious, nationality or sexual preference card is played. Carter, who arguably was the worst president since Warren Harding, has some street creds, at least for a white man, on race.

The Plains, Georgia, native whose best childhood friends were black, has an exemplary record of governor of a southern state and president as a champion and empathetic defender of black people in America.

“Racism ... still exists and I think it has bubbled up to the surface because of a belief among many white people, not just in the south but around the country, that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It’s an abominable circumstance and grieves me and concerns me very deeply,” Carter told NBC News.

Wilson, a South Carolina Republican congressman, was scolded in a House resolution Tuesday 240 to 179. The House held that by shouting "You lie" during the president’s speech, Wilson committed a “breach of decorum and degraded the proceedings of the joint session, to the discredit of the House.”

The rebuke was demanded by the Democratic black caucus because Wilson refused to apologize on the House floor although he did, upon instructions from Republican house leaders, relay his forgiveness to the White House which Obama accepted.

No one knows whether racism harbors in Wilson's mind. Some pundits on the cable networks speculated he had too much to drink before attending the joint congressional speech. Maureen Dowd in her New York Times column Sunday thought but was uncertain whether Wilson's outburst was "You, lie, boy!" Wilson's wife asked him who was the nut who yelled at the president.

"There is not a racist bone in my dad's body," said Alan Wilson, an Iraq veteran who is running for state attorney general. "He doesn't even laugh at distasteful jokes. I won't comment on former President Carter, because I don't know President Carter. But I know my dad, and it's just not in him."

Dick Harpootlian, a former South Carolina Democratic Party chairman, said he has known Wilson for years and doubts the remarks were motivated by racism. "I think Joe's conduct was asinine, but I think it would be asinine no matter what the color of the president," he said. "I don't think Joe's outburst was caused by President Obama being African-American. I think it was caused by no filter being between his brain and his mouth."

Michael Steele, the black Republican Party chairman, said:

President Carter is flat out wrong. This isn't about race. It is about policy. This is a pathetic distraction by Democrats to shift attention away from the president's wildly unpopular government-run health care plan that the American people simply oppose.

Injecting race into the debate over critical issues facing American families doesn't create jobs, reform our health care system or reduce the growing deficit. It only divides Americans rather than uniting us to find solutions to challenges facing our nation.

I find this argument to seriously address the health care reform debate by Republicans astonishing. Not a single Republican has voted in favor of any of the bills offered by the Democrats. They contend the Democrats won't accept their ideas despite the fact hundreds of Republican amendments to the proposed legislation have been included in the process leading to the mark ups or floor votes. It's their problem, not the Democrats, they are the minority party.

The race card may or may not be red herring. What is real is the uncivil discourse we see from town hall meetings and marches on Washington, writes Robin Abcarin in the Los Angeles Times. She quotes a University of Washington sociologist the bad discourse began in the 1960s when America's youth challenged the Vietnam War.

Cultural critic and writer Joseph Epstein thinks civility was purely a facade to begin with, Abcarin writes:

The public figures who crossed the line have careers that generally require them to create "false PR personalities," Epstein said. "These were eruptions of true, loathsome feelings after all these years of suppression and having to pretend to be such sweet characters when they are not. What they all were before is as phony as can be. They all just said, 'I can't take it anymore,' and they all fell apart."

Abcarin then interviews Drew Westen, an Emory University psychologist who has studied the effects of unconscious racism in political contests. He said it was no accident that most of these incidents involved blacks and whites.

"I think racial tensions on both sides are pretty high right now," Westen said. "It's on a new level now because it's not conscious or overt. It's bubbling underneath. What might have led to a small reaction or a thought to yourself that something is unfair is now popping out of people's mouths."

And then Westen, a Democratic consultant, takes a swipe at Obama for not taking advantage of Wilson's outburst.

"The president had just said in his speech that he is happy to work with people who want solutions, but 'I will call you out' to those who are getting in the way and being uncivil. And then Joe Wilson calls him a liar to his face in front of the whole nation. He should have said, 'Excuse me, I believe someone just called me a liar. Would you like to stand up?' "

That Obama did not do that, said Westen, "was an object lesson in why the right continues to escalate their incivility."

Let's give credit where credit is due. Three cheers to the Republican attack squads who have framed the national debate to their terms. It is derisive, negative, pocked with lies and distortions and will do Americans no benefit. It is their way of restoring America to its founding freedoms of rising health costs, failing banking institutions, filthy air and wars that have no redeeming outcomes.

A pox on the Democrats for allowing this to happen. Nor will I buy their sanctimonious whining they never called President Bush a liar during his address to a joint congress. They did that and more out of chambers coaxed and fanned by a vicious left wing media blitz.

Come on, America. Can't we all just get along?

Why I Screw Up Now And Then, I Recall

I want to take a breather for a couple of minutes from bashing Joe Wilson and other stupid Republican claims about our health care legislation and discuss a condition that has bothered me the past several months.

For no apparent reason my brain insists I sleep 10 to 12 hours a day. Anything short of that, I feel like I'm hungover but I don't drink booze. Furthermore, less than that amount of sleep tends to contribute to stupid mistakes in my blog writings which I greet with self-deprecating humor as a "senior moment."

Well, it ain't funny. I'm a creature of habit. My morning ritual has been well established over the past 60-plus years. Violate that custom and I'm thrown off schedule for the entire day.

I used to get by on five to seven hours sleep and perhaps log in an extra hour or two on Sundays.

I was diagnosed with sleep apnea five years go. The condition was corrected simply by breathing oxygen through the night with what is called a CPAP machine. It broke down 10 days ago and I'm waiting for the insurance company to replace it. But the need for sleep began many weeks before. Now, it is worse, for obvious reasons.

A hypochondriac I am not. I plan to discuss this newly found disorder with my primary physician scheduled the end of this month. All she'll do is kiss it off to a specialist.

Nor am I one to read medical studies and diagnose my imagined condition. Well, I read a study today written by Reuters that indicates I could be in the early stages of dementia. I fit all the criteria.

Spanish researchers found that among nearly 3,300 older adults they followed for three years, those who slept nine or more hours per day, daytime naps included, were about twice as likely to develop dementia as those who typically slept for seven hours.

The study of 3,286 adults age 65 and older found 140 with dementia and of those 28 slept nine or more hours a night.

"It remains to be established how the relation between longer sleep duration and dementia is mediated," said Dr. Julian Benito-Leon, of University Hospital '12 de Octubre' in Madrid. He added there is no known cure.

I've defied the laws of medical probabilities all my life and see no reason to quit now.This time the odds are in my favor.

Obamacare You Can Live With

In an attempt to regain control of the health care debate if not his presidency, President Barack Obama crafted a speech a fifth grader could grasp and Congress could follow allowing all Americans to receive affordable medical services.

What struck me was all the goals and specifics outlined by the president seem reasonable enough for Congress to adopt with all sides of the equation giving up some of their hallowed turf. That's what sausage-making legislation is all about. I think if Obama had his druthers, he would prefer extending Medicare to all and raise taxes to fill the deficit holes. But, no, the man is a political pragmatist and has a feel for what flies and what sinks.

To win this battle, the emotionally-charged debate needs to be unplugged after a summer of discontent. That became evident when snickers rolled across the chamber floor after the president said "there remain some significant details to be ironed out." That wasn't unusual.

What was a violation of decorum was Rep. Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) who yelled "you lie" when Obama debunked charges that the proposed legislation would pay for medical coverage for illegal immigrants. Wilson later apologized to the White House, claiming "emotions" got the better of him.

The only areas of the speech Wednesday night that left me uncomfortable was Obama's argument that any plan approved by Congress be deficit neutral. I do agree with this statement:"Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close." It's the numbers game how we get there is what is troubling.

The encouraging aspects of Obamacare -- and I use the term approvingly and not mockingly as opponents have coined -- is legislation that would force the insurance carriers to be more accountable.

What this plan will do is to make the insurance you have work better for you. Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies - because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse. That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives.


I have no problem with Obama doing an end run around the liberal Democrats demand for a public option. Instead, he dipped into his bag of campaign proposals and suggested a new government insurance exchange to cover the uninsured.

If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage. If you strike out on your own and start a small business, you will be able to get coverage. We will do this by creating a new insurance exchange - a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices. Insurance companies will have an incentive to participate in this exchange because it lets them compete for millions of new customers.

Obama laid down a few markers. His proposals translate to the premise that health care is a right for every American. It also would require all Americans to buy health insurance as they do automobile insurance.He seemed willing to allow consumers to buy out-of-state health insurance, a practice now under the exclusive domain of individual states. And, he supports a Bush administration proposal to test by region ways to cap malpractice lawsuits.

Frankly, the speech comes too late in the legislative process, I fear. No one seems to recall a presidential speech that tipped the scales in favor of landmark legislation. I doubt the president changed any minds in Congress. We won't know for several days if it stirred the grass roots to demand reform as outlined by the president.

One thing is clear. There's 80% agreement in Congress over what so far has been introduced in draft bills and that's the closest we've been since President Teddy Roosevelt argued for it almost a century ago.

We may not get a whole loaf from health reform, but a couple of slices short is not all that bad.

Send The Peace Corps, Not More Troops, To Afghanistan

I'm not gloating but two New York Times columnists agree with my assessment that U.S. military presence in Afghanistan is untenable although neither go as far as my desire to pull out all our troops.

Normally, opinions by New York Times columnists are not those that sway the powers in Washington. But in the case of Afghanistan the White House and Pentagon should be taking notes. One columnist is Thomas L. Friedman, arguably the most authoritative voice in the main stream media on Middle Eastern affairs. The other is Nicholas D. Kristof whom I'm not so sure about but at least he's talked to the folks there.

Writes Friedman:

It would be one thing if the people we were fighting with and for represented everything the Taliban did not: decency, respect for women’s rights and education, respect for the rule of law and democratic values and rejection of drug-dealing. But they do not. Too many in this Kabul government are just a different kind of bad. This has become a war between light black — (president Hamid) Karzai & Co. — and dark black — Taliban Inc. And light black is simply not good enough to ask Americans to pay for with blood or treasure.

Friedman argues after eight years we do not have a reliable partner to hand off to.

The strategy that our new — and impressive — commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is pursuing calls for additional troops to create something that does not now exist there — a reasonably noncorrupt Afghan state that will serve its people and partner with America in keeping Afghanistan free of drug lords, warlords, the Taliban and Al Qaeda. His plan calls for clearing areas of Taliban control, holding those areas and then building effective local, district and provincial governments — along with a bigger army, real courts, police and public services. Because only with all that can we hold the support of the Afghan people and avoid a Taliban victory and a return of Al Qaeda that could threaten us. That is the theory.

What it amount to is a shift in policy from baby sitting a nation to adopting it, Friedman says.

"I feel a vast and rising ambivalence about this in the American public today, and adopting a baby you are ambivalent about is a prescription for disaster," he concludes.

Kristof is worried President Obama will increase troop levels in Afghanistan in which he cites military and CIA officials as a recipe for disaster. The group fears sending more American troops into ethnic Pashtun areas in the Afghan south may only galvanize local people to back the Taliban in repelling the infidels.

Many Pashtuns I’ve interviewed are appalled by the Taliban’s periodic brutality and think they are too extreme; they think they’re a little nuts. But these Pashtuns also admire the Taliban’s personal honesty and religious piety, a contrast to the corruption of so many officials around President Hamid Karzai.

Some Taliban are hard-core ideologues, but many join the fight because friends or elders suggest it, because they are avenging the deaths of relatives in previous fighting, because it’s a way to earn money, or because they want to expel the infidels from their land — particularly because the foreigners haven’t brought the roads, bridges and irrigation projects that had been anticipated.

The group Kristof cites includes Howard Hart, a former Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Pakistan; David Miller, a former ambassador and National Security Council official; William J. Olson, a counterinsurgency scholar at the National Defense University; and another C.I.A. veteran who does not want his name published but who spent 12 years in the region, was station chief in Kabul at the time the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and later headed the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center.

Kristof supports a nation building approach.

The solution is neither to pull out of Afghanistan nor to double down. Rather, we need to continue our presence with a lighter military footprint, limited to training the Afghan forces and helping them hold major cities, and ensuring that Al Qaeda does not regroup. We must also invest more in education and agriculture development, for that is a way over time to peel Pashtuns away from the Taliban.

What turned me sour on Afghanistan as a hopeless rebuilding entity is a 2007 report by the World Bank in which I posted columns in May and June. One of the bank's subsidiaries loaned the Karzai government $65 million to begin restoring its rural irrigation system. Success was marginal at best and was marred by corrupt and inept officials within the Interior Ministry.

In efforts to improve the country's agriculture development, why not send in trained experts in horticulture and irrigation engineering from members of our civilian Peace Corps. Afghanistan with its tribal customs will take years to bring into the 21st century. The end game is no where near in sight.

It's time for our soldiers to leave.

Memorize This, Fool

I have a story to tell that relates to the brewing controversy over President Obama's speech to the nation's school children next Tuesday.

It was during the war years of 1943-45. Our grade school teachers made it a contest. Who could raise the most money for Infantile Paralysis. The money was for research to cure the disease that crippled President Franklin Roosevelt in the prime of his life. The campaign was based on the slogan "March For Dimes."

My parents nor the parents of many of my fellow second and third graders were fans of FDR, not because of the war but because of his landmark social policies to move the nation out of the Great Depression.

No one, not even those in rock-ribbed Republican Orange County, Calif., suggested for a second that joining the March of Dimes was furthering FDR's political agenda. The drive to cure the terrible disease was greeted with the same enthusiasm as buying war bonds for $18.25 which, in 10 years, were worth $25.

We didn't take home notes from teachers for parental authorization. We took home Mason jars to be filled with pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters.

Flash forward to 2009.

President Obama's speech at a Virginia high school essentially urges students to study hard, finish school and accept personal responsibility. There's no more political overtones in that message than the March For Dimes drive honored for FDR.

Michelle Malkin, just one of many ultra-right conservative voices, claims it is a well-known fact liberal Democrats want to brainwash our nation's children with their social agendas she and others like her oppose.

The fact is, President Obama's speech is not the problem. He's the straw man.

What the critics really are complaining about is several lesson plans suggested by some unthinking zealots in the U.S. Department of Education for teachers to ask their students to write an essay how they can help our president. To that, I would agree, poses a problem to some parents.

Each school district is setting its own protocol. At Davidson Elementary in San Bernardino, Calif., Principal Joyce Payne said nearly all her teachers in grades higher than kindergarten will show the speech, which she expects to be "a wonderful learning experience for kids." She also anticipates that her teachers will use the accompanying classroom materials prepared by the Obama administration.

I was curious how my old school district is handling it.

Ken Lopez-Maddox, a former Republican assemblyman who is a school board trustee for the Capistrano Unified School District in Orange County, said he has no problem with the president addressing students and schools.

"To the degree he's emphasizing education, I think it's great," he said.

The district issued a news release saying it was not "encouraging nor discouraging classroom viewing," and urging parents who do not want their children to watch the speech to contact school principals.

Maddox said he respected the rights of parents to choose what their children watch, but added: "I would think it odd that they wouldn't want them to know what the president is going to say."

I mentioned Ms. Malkin earlier. Here's another critic touching on the same subject:

On Thursday, Jim Greer, chairman of the Florida Republican Party, accused the president of attempting to "indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda." According to Greer, "the idea that schoolchildren across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans for government-run healthcare, banks and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other president, is not only infuriating but goes against the beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power."

One of the most common assignments teachers require is writing essays on a timely subject or memorizing a classic speech delivered by our presidents. Consider yourself in the fifth grade during the Civil War and the teacher made you memorize the Gettysburg Address by President Lincoln. Would the school need authorization from the parents? I don't think so.

The White House plans to release the speech online Monday so parents can read it. Obama will deliver the speech at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va.

Afganistan Is Not Worth The Price

President Obama this weekend at Camp David is studying a classified report submitted by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, that some say could be a game changer by putting a larger emphasis on "protecting the Afghan people."

You can bet he will not take my advise and that of a growing number of both liberals and conservatives that the U.S. should pull its forces from that country which has booted out every invader in recorded history.

From the U.S. perspective, we are not invaders but rather protectors resisting the Taliban from governing and al quada from training terrorists. Tell that to Afghan civilians who are killed in air attacks at a frightening rate, including perhaps dozens early Friday.

From the Afghan perspective, we kill indiscriminately, burn their best source of income in poppy production, interdict their drug traffickers and support its corrupt government. Humanitarian efforts by the U.S., some NATO allies and the World Bank go unnoticed because the projects stagnate once they enter the hands of local officials and inept bureaucrats.

Friday's air attack on two hijacked diesel tankers is the latest tragedy. Depending on what report you believe, the German command ordered the attack believing no civilians were in the area of the tiny village of Omar Kheil, about 10 miles south of Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan. The explosion killed about 80 people, and an undetermined number of civilians who arrived beginning about an hour earlier to collect released fuel from the tankers to lighten their loads in order to cross a muddy stream bed.

The airstrike comes three months after McChrystal tightened the rules governing the use of airstrikes in an effort to reduce the civilian deaths that he said were undermining the American-led mission by creating anger and opposition among Afghans.

This latest episode could have political ramifications in Germany where its participation is deeply unpopular and comes just three weeks before the federal election in which Chancellor Angela Merkel is seeking a second term.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates signaled Thursday he may drop his resistance for more troops to Afghanistan if it would help McChrystal's change in strategy to protect Afghan civilians which Obama is reviewing at Camp David. "It's not the size of the footprint, but the nature of the footprint" that matters, said Gates.

Gates must be reminded that any footprint would be resisted by the Afghan civilians as they have each and every time a foreign army has set foot in that forsaken country.

Gates says the call to vacate the Afghans is improper although he agrees the American people are growing weary of the growing number of casualties. He argued that President Obama's new strategy in Afghanistan hasn't even been given a chance to work.

One way of looking at the Obama strategy is its focus on nation building -- programs to train the police and army for security, rebuilding roads and improving the infrastructure which is in shambles whether its irrigation, drinking water, sewage or electrical grid system.

Afghanistan remains a nation ruled by tribal factions and warlords. They will fail to improve themselves if they follow the Taliban influence which systematically allows women to bear children and bans them from all other contributions to its society.

My feeling is if they existed this long without us, so be it. They may be on to something we can't comprehend. The price in American lives and the cost to nation build is too enormous when the end game is factored in. I don't pretend I'm an expert on Afghanistan. I know nothing about the country or its people other than what I have read, and, I must confess, isn't all that much. Call it an opinion from a common Joe who sees no U.S. resolve, no public will to spend resources we can't afford.

We will never win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. And the location of the country in the Middle East never could be confused as strategic or critical to our national security. It cannot be argued it is a buffer to its neighbors in Pakistan or Iran. The only thing Afghanistan has to offer is its poppy fields. If the country is used as a training ground and safe haven for terrorists, then fly in the drones and jets from off shore carriers.

The problem I had with President Bush and now Obama is allowing the generals on the ground to influence policy decisions. Generals rarely tell their commander-in-chief they can't carry out a mission.

Of course, McChrystal has a plan. Whether it works is not the point. It is just not worth the effort.

Daily Kos -- Anatomy Of Bad Polling

For the first time in my life, professional pollsters tracked me down and actually asked my opinion on what they considered vital questions on the state of the union. Naturally, I was flattered. But the conversation went downhill in a hurry.

It was a legitimate poll conducted by Pew Research Center of Princeton, New Jersey, and I suspect the woman conducting the poll was a college student. I am also guessing the pollster who called last Friday was bored to death and eager to go party based only on the monotone of her voice.

I must be a bummer to interview. About two minutes into it, she asked several questions on abortion. The responses were I considered myself pro-choice. I am somewhat religious but haven't been to church in years. And, no, I don't believe the government should pay for abortions. I felt set up to appear foolish. I tried to explain the Hyde Amendment prevented the government from paying for abortions and consequently felt the question misleading. Her only response was to repeat the question. Apparently, you can't explain your answers to a pollster.

The other questions covered healthcare reform, climate change and rating Congress and the president on their work to solve these problems, as well as my political party, age, marriage status, ethnic group and ZIP code. I assume she figured out I was a male.

Frankly, she zipped through the questions so fast and so robotic that I'm uncertain exactly what I told her and how I fit in Pew's model matrix.

As a journalist and now blogging as a political columnist, I have mixed emotions over the validity of polls. At best, they are a broad indicator of public sentiment on an issue at a specific point in time. At worst, they are a manipulated weapon to calculate the efficacy of a political point of view.

Which is why I found so poignant an article written by Phil Trounstine and Jerry Roberts in today's Los Angeles Times that skewered a recent poll conducted by the liberal website Daily Kos. The poll showed San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome narrowing the gap to nine points behind Calfiornia Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown in the Democratic primary race for governor. Writes Trounstine and Roberts:

Within minutes, the San Francisco Chronicle posted a blog item saying the poll showed the race was "narrowing," comparing it to a June survey, conducted by a different company, that gave Brown a 20-point lead over Newsom. The item was quickly picked up and posted by Rough & Tumble, California's premier political news aggregator. Then it was reported and re-blasted by "The Fix" at the Washington Post, one of the top political sites in the country. Within 12 hours, this characterization of California's race for governor became received wisdom.

There was only one problem with this wisdom: It was wrong.

The incident illustrates how political misinformation and misinterpretation can be more viral than the truth in the Internet News Age, as reporting on polls pulses through the electronic highway, launched by news organizations with little time to evaluate and sift the quality of research. In recent weeks, a series of California political surveys has produced a cacophony of often conflicting analysis, opinion and reporting that served to confuse readers and distort political perceptions.

For example, comparing and measuring the Daily Kos poll, conducted by Research 2000, against the previous poll -- done with a completely different methodology by Moore Methods Research of Sacramento -- created a false equivalency. In fact, a recent follow-up poll by poll director James Moore, who has long experience in California, found that, far from tightening, Brown's lead over Newsom has grown to 29 percentage points.

A poll's methodology -- including the sample size, method of selection and phrasing of questions -- is crucial. The Daily Kos survey, for example, used random digit dialing to reach California adults. To identify them as "likely voters," pollsters asked respondents several questions, including whether they considered themselves Democrats or Republicans. But identifying 600 likely voters didn't provide the number of Democrats and Republicans statistically necessary to measure the primaries, so pollsters called more people until they had 400 self-identified Republicans and 400 self-identified Democrats. Then, as they put it, "quotas were assigned to reflect the voter registration of distribution by county."

After this statistical slicing and dicing, the survey produced a final sample of alleged likely voters that included 18% under age 30 and 19% age 60 and older. But according to a real-world screen of likely voters -- based on actual voting histories -- the June 2010 primary electorate is expected to include about 6% people under 30 and 38% people over 60.

These issues alone would be enough to distort the state of the Brown-Newsom contest. But will any of them surface when the next reporter Googles the California governor's race, looking for standings? Not a chance. Why does it matter? Because misreporting of polls allows campaign spinners not only to boost or suppress candidate fundraising but to manipulate news coverage, frame campaign narratives and shape public perceptions.

The two reporters conclude polling stories should be viewed by readers and voters with great skepticism and news outlets should use greater care in analyzing and distributing survey data.

Amen, brothers.