[Superman]

You guys are amazing. I'm repeatedly awestruck by your imaginative responses to information that, without your imagination, might be useful information. At least something to think about. But if discrediting information information using an 'ad hominem' argument against the New York Times helps to simplify this issue for you guys, then continue doing what you're doing. Simplicity is an important feature when it comes to how certain people learn and understand stuff.

But you have to spin quite a web to get there. For example, you have to dismiss the nation's newspapers as distributing false information. Interesting charge, I think. Not some, but pretty much all newspapers have to be bundled and subject to this conclusion. TV stations, too. And all data, except for the data showing Bush's soaring popularity. I'm sure there is a think-tank some where that can feed this appetite for statistics. But the vast majority of data sources will have to be discredited because that's not what they say.

Just strikes me as odd. You've got a seated President. You control both houses of Congress. America is in the middle of a conservative-thinking craze with the average Joe believing that government is bad, and business and the economy are our only reliable saviors. And yet, you seem to be in need of concluding that the world is "out to get" your party and your candidate. My grandfather suffered from paranoia, and his thinking patterns were like what I see here.

For the rest of you (the ones who think): Polls are fallible but they can tell us things, particularly if they are repeated periodically and they can show a trend (suggesting they are measuring something besides sampling error). Sampling error for proportions tends to be acceptably small (5% error when estimating a proportion within +/- 2 to 3%) once the sample size exceeds about 350, depending upon the type of conclusion you are trying to draw. And finally, polling right now is almost senseless. This nation is so ignorant, and so fickle in its perceptions, and so gullible when it comes to marketing glitz and clever soundbites, that its overall perception right now is immaterial. A clever strategist, particularly a seated President with many opportunities in the next several months to place his mug on TV (as President, not campaigning mind you) to give himself glowing report cards on various victories, can overcome quite a perception deficit in a very short time. This is the nature of the American voter.

Okay, the rest of you guys stop thinking about that last part. Too complicated. Throw your empties at the screen. Much simpler.