A POLL LIKE NO OTHER…. As regular readers know, most national polls from major news outlets are interesting for their results. Fox News polls are interesting for their questions. Most reputable news outlets try to maintain a degree of seriousness with their poll questions. Fox News prefers to add a little panache to their surveys.
The network’s latest (pdf) doesn’t disappoint. It asks, for example, “Who do you think is more determined to win the war in Afghanistan — President Obama or the leaders of the Taliban and al Qaeda?” As Dave Weigel noted, “I tried to cross-reference this with the way Fox News asked the question during the Bush administration’s seven years of muddling through in Afghanistan. Surprisingly, it never got asked.”
Fox News also asked a number of questions about the White House saying mean things about Fox News. And wouldn’t you know it, Fox News’ poll found that a majority of respondents believe Fox News is “right in this debate.” Imagine that. Greg Sargent added, “This is not the first time Fox has polled on its own confrontation with the White House, either. Legit news outlet Fox News is happy to continue making itself the story. Would you ever see MSNBC indulge in this sort of thing?”
But there was one legitimate question in the poll that offered a result the network surely didn’t care for.
“Who do you think is more responsible for the current state of the economy — President Barack Obama or former President George W. Bush?”
A clear 58% majority consider Bush more responsible for the country’s economic difficulties, while only 18% blame Obama. Among self-identified independents, it was an even larger margin — 59% blame Bush, while 11% believe Obama is more responsible.
Even 29% of Republicans consider Bush more responsible.
I don’t imagine that’ll get a lot of airtime on the network.
