<$BlogRSDUrl$>

My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2005-11-25

Public Disconnected From Elites On Iraq War

Or so the headline would have you believe.

Negative press coverage of the war in Iraq in recent weeks has emphasized rising pessimism among the American public about the conflict. But a new survey found that 56 percent of the public thinks that efforts to establish a stable democracy in the country will succeed.

The survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press -- which also plumbed opinions of journalists, university presidents and others in academe, diplomats, government officials, religious leaders, members of the military, scientists and international security specialists -- revealed a marked disconnect between the perceptions of the general public and many of the so-called opinion leaders. [emphases mine]

When asked whether they thought democracy would succeed in Iraq, only 33 percent of the journalists agreed that it had a chance. The number was even worse in academe -- 27 percent of respondents thought the effort would succeed. Among the military, however, the number stood at 64 percent.

So, I suppose this is what Laura Ingraham is talking about when she mocks "elites."

But reading a little further reveals something quite interesting: the Pew Center's choices of "elites" all but guarantees a leftward skew among them. Among the findings:

:The Foreign Affairs sample was randomly selected from the membership roster of the Council on Foreign Relations.

:For the religion sample, leaders of Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim organizations with membership over 700,000 each were sampled.

:The military leaders sample was drawn from a Lexis-Nexis search of retired generals and admirals quoted in American news sources in the past year.

Powerline did such a nice job picking apart the choices that I'll simply direct your attention to them for all the necessary information.

But, as an aside, have you noticed how this survey has gotten NEXT TO ZERO play in the MSM?
Posted by: Michael / 11/25/2005 09:18:00 AM

Weblog Commenting by HaloScan.com

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?