Heh: Even Spitzer Questions CNN's Dubious SOTU Poll

The biggest joke the other night was some lame CBS poll that "reported" 92% gave Obama's plagiarized speech high marks. Meanwhile, over at CNN, the low-rated former john Eliot Spitzer questioned their dubious numbers.

Eliot Spitzer's CNN colleagues say he's trying to steamroll management. The "Parker Spitzer" co-host responded nastily to a mass e-mail from CNN's News Standards and Practices chief Rick Davis that offered guidance on how to report a poll on reaction to the State of the Union address. Shortly before the poll results aired Tuesday night, Davis advised CNN personnel to preface them with the expectation that there would be a positive reaction because more Democrats tend to watch a speech by a Democratic president than Republicans. But after the poll aired, Spitzer shot back in his own mass e-mail, "This poll is totally misleading and should not be aired as one who has studied these polls I woukd [sic] be embarassed to put these numbers on the air."

The poll released Tuesday night was given a misleading headline that 84% approved of the speech, but that combined 52% who were positive and 32% who were somewhat positive. That makes sense if you consider the sample.

The sample of speech-watchers in the poll were 39 percent Democratic and 19 percent Republican. Those numbers indicate that the sample is about nine to ten points more Democratic than the population as a whole. The audience for Obama's State of the Union address last year was 38 percent Democratic and 25 percent Republican.

So in CNN's universe, Democrats now outnumber Republicans by an even greater margin even though the country has gone in the opposite direction. You have to give Spitzer credit for seeing through the nonsense.

Yet this is a great example how the media just manufactures and makes up the news. Before anyone could digest the speech headlines blared around the world how either 92% or 84% of the public liked the speech.