Party Politics: Beneath the Latest Fox News Poll

The headline on the most recent Fox News poll is that 79% of those surveyed say that "it's possible the economy could collapse".

I haven't been able to locate the underlying data, which Fox has published for other polls in the past, but I have to say that the potential wordings and the misleading manner in which responses could be grouped makes the headline more than a little suspect.

Yes, in theory the economy could collapse, but right now, we have no idea how many people think this to be a likely scenario or a probable outcome and how many just agree that it's possible.

So, once you discount the top line, you're presented with some other data and though it's purely political, one thing that jumped out is that only 16% of those surveyed by Opinion Dynamics think the Republicans in Congress have a plan to "fix the economy" and only 25% of Republicans believe that their party has a solution.

Kurtz: Behind the Curtain of Fox's 5 O'Clock Show

At eleven o'clock Eastern, Howard Kurtz is going to participate in one of his regular Q&As with online readers, but after this morning's column, where he shines a somewhat negative, but fairly even-handed light on Glenn Beck, one might expect the midday session to be swarmed by Beckheads and become something of a chore for the moderator.

A few takeaways;

• A FNC VP was assigned last fall "'to help keep an eye on that program' and review its content in advance".
• He "has surrounded himself with loyalists from Mercury, some of whom remain on that company's payroll".
• During rehearsals, "Beck has teared up or paused at the same moments as he later did during the show".

All together, Kurtz's column is an interesting read for anyone interested in the media phenomenon that is Glenn Beck.

Missing the Forest for the Trees

If you watch a lot of Hulu, you may have seen a PSA from Emily Deschanel as part of Fox's "Green it. Mean it." campaign. And while I have no reason to doubt the statistics and her solution is clearly "green", the conclusion is beside the point.

Smoking the Opposition

Earlier this evening on his FoxNews show, Geraldo Rivera came out of a story about a marijuana cafe soon to open in Portland to in-studio guests, Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, who were there to promote their upcoming "Make it Legal" tour.

After Geraldo introduced his guests and exchanged familiarities, Tommy Chong made a simple argument in favor of rescheduling marijuana from Class 1 to Class 2, which would make it available nationwide on a prescription basis.

Afterwards, Mr. Rivera turned to panelist Ann Coulter, who stated almost word-for-word much the same thing she said in a previous Geraldo At-Large segment on 10/25, which I'm posting below and transcribing as follows;

It's one thing, people who have cancer and it helps with the nausea and it makes them hungry, but by the way, I've known people with cancer who needed pot and nobody had any trouble getting it. So, I think it's about right, the way it is now.

IOW: We shouldn't change the drug laws and guarantee that everyone who needs pot for medical purposes can safely buy it from a regulated source, perhaps even pay for it with their insurance because Ann Coulter's friends don't fit a police officer's profile.



After Ms. Coulter's cultural arrogance on 10/25, Geraldo does a Sesame Street piece about the Attorney General's announcement that the feds would bend to state law when it's properly applied and turned to former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who argued that it would have been all right for the feds to have deprioritized enforcement, but they shouldn't have told anyone.

ETA: Here's a link to Cheech & Chong's 11/16 appearance.