Cough, Hack

From the WaPo:

A majority of Americans favor the confirmation of federal appeals court judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court and an even larger proportion believe Alito would not vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 high court ruling that legalized abortion, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

That's kinda funny, because a majority of Americans do not favor overturning Roe or expanding presdiential power to dictatorial status. Because that's what we'd get with ScAlito. Nevermind that first paragraph is just shoddy reporting designed to cover up the actual results.

According to the poll, 38 percent predict Alito will vote on abortion issues in ways that do not significantly alter Roe. Another 26 percent said they expect Alito to favor greater restrictions on abortion but not to strike down the ruling. Slightly fewer than one in five--18 percent--say they believe he would vote to overturn the decision.

Simple addition, which I learned after many, many grueling courses in college, and apparently is not a requirement in life, much less journamalism, says that 26 + 18 = 44, which says that 44% of Americans believe that ScAlito will restrict and make harder the ability to receive an abortion. The Post, or Richard Morin in particular here, comes to that large proportion that believes that Roe will not be overturned by subtracting 100 - 18 = 72. That clouds what is really at stake here - how much people are worried about their right to privacy. It's even more ridiculous to say that a majority of Americans favor confirmation when your number is 53%, and later in the bowels of your text you state:

The Alito nomination has yet to galvanize opposition among Democratic rank-and-file, the survey found. Democrats remain split over Alito, with 40 percent supporting the appointment while 39 percent oppose it. Even among liberals, those who oppose him (44 percent) narrowly outnumber supporters (38 percent).

Three in four Republicans--76 percent--favor confirmation while slightly fewer than half of all self-described political independents say Alito should be approved.

Lord only knows what kind of question they actually asked to get 40% of Democrats supporting the appointment. But the fact remains that fewer than half of all Democrats and indepedents support the nomination, and only 76% of all Republicans. Beats me how that turns into a majority of Americans. This is some seriously shoddy reporting and pollwork, and during the course of writing this post I figured MyDD would have something similar on this topic, and lo and behold they do, so read on for the Alito Polling Myth.

Update: For more polling fun, check out the Harris poll.