LETTERS: Debating the Merits of Impeachment Polling

By: E&P Staff Today's letters take a look at the debate over impeachment polling, a topic that's slowly starting to gain traction as President Bush's job approval rating hovers around the lowest mark of his five years in office.

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Polling Impeachment Talk vs. War on Christmas: Double Standard?

Re: 'Impeachment Talk' Appears in Media at Last

In your article, you quote Washington Post pollster Richard Morin as refusing to conduct a poll on the topic of impeaching President Bush on the grounds that "he and other pollsters have been the 'target of a campaign organized by a Democratic Web site demanding that we ask a question about impeaching Bush in our polls.'"

What's infuriating about that rationale is that, first of all, many of us have serious -- and quite legitimate -- concerns about Bush's clear-cut abuses of power and would have those concerns even if no "Democratic Web site" existed to mirror those concerns. Secondly, pollsters don't seem to have any qualms about sampling public opinion based on bogus topics created by, and kept alive solely through the existence of, the right-wing media. Case in point: Is there a war against Christmas? (No, there isn't.) That is a complete non-issue, totally unworthy of pollsters' attention, and yet a glance at pollingreport.com reveals the existence of at least two recent polls asking whether organized religion is under attack and whether respondents are offended when stores use the greeting "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas." Although both polls were conducted by Fox News, which many of us do not consider a credible news organization, the fact that they are being reported on pollingreport.com (and in other mainstream media) lends such polls legitimacy.

So apparently there is a double standard in the media about whether polling should be conducted on topics promoted by "organized campaigns."

In addition, I fail to understand why the Washington Post and other media reflexively dismiss the idea of impeachment despite well-documented systemic abuses of power by the Bush Administration, when the same media were all-too-eager to float the idea of impeachment when Bill Clinton attempted to keep his relationship with Monica Lewinsky -- a purely private matter -- out of the public arena.

Another double standard, one that simply makes no sense -- unless the Post is merely acting as a Bush partisan.

As both a political scientist (M.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell University and B.A. from UCLA) and a trained journalist, I see absolutely no compelling reason to refuse to put a poll in the field asking American citizens whether they favor or oppose impeaching president Bush if it turns out he has committed impeachable offenses.

J.G. Berinstein
Northridge, Calif.

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Too Much Headline Fun?

Do you now determine what is news? The tone of this heading almost chastises the great unwashed for not thinking the same way as you. Maybe you should not let the Democratic leadership write your copy or at least hide the fact a little better.

James Day
Austin, Texas

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Squid Ink

Once again, E&P proves my point that the MSM is incredibly leftward biased and, as a result, completely blind. Rush Limbaugh predicted this would happen well before the 2004 elections when he said "After Bush wins, the Dems' strategy will be to try to find something to generate impeachment charges on."

What is amazing is how utterly in denial the MSM (including E&P) and the Dems are: the party is in total meltdown -- my prediction remains that the GOP will gain one Senate seat and about 5 House seats in 2006 -- and they continue to think that by attacking Bush (whose approval ratings have soared since he started making his speeches on the war -- by one poll a net turn around of 38%!) they are "scoring points" with the public. Look at the stock chart of the NY Times; look at the listenership (both of them) of "Air America." The leftist media is crashing, and like a squid in trouble, all it does is release more useless ink.

Larry Schweikart
Professor of History
(co-author, "A Patriot's History of the United States")

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It's About Time

I'm glad to see someone is finally talking in terms of impeachment, but why pretend these new discoveries are just coming to light? Most everybody has known these things for months. The man should have been impeached years ago.

Guy P. Fraser
Cola, S.C.

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Leftist Bias

Do you realize how stupid this impeachment issue makes you look, and by implication the entire profession? No? I thought not. You're making the case for MSM bias irrefutable. If you want newspapers to disappear altogether, keep it up.

Jerry Carroll
Hot Springs Village, Ark.

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Change of Topic

Re: Fact Checking the Feds in Airport Shooting

Thank you for your article on the Miami bombing. You make many of the same arguments I made to friends. BTW, what ever happened to "alleged" in articles where a person had not yet been convicted?

Bryan P. Haggerty
Associate Director, Research Computing Lab
I.U. Visual Sciences Group