Posted by
Andrews on Monday, July 21, 2008 9:51:53 AM
Greenwald's column from Salon deserves more thorough treatment, but at the moment I only have time to address a fewquestions. His interest in Iranian public opinion polls and his belief in the "Israel Lobby". And I suppose I should mention how worthless polls are which do not actually reproduce the questions asked, and finally the smuggled assumptions in his reading of polls.
First, let us look at Greenwald's section on Iran. According to him, polls show Ahmadinajhad is thought of well by his people and the Iranians look at the American people favorably but the American government unfavorably. I bet Mr. Greenwald thinks Soviet era Russian's loved the government too. Does this fellow not realize the Iranians have secret police?
Let us put it this way. You live in a state with secret religious police who work in concert with the government. Either a stranger comes up to you on the street, or the phone rings, they ask what you think of the president, the religious government, and the state's greatest rival. What do you say? Are you going to be honest? They may say they are disinterested foreigners, but what proof could they provide that would convince you no one is listening?
I have worked with a number of Iranians and I have to say the image they give is NOT the one in these polls. Most go home frequently to visit family, so they are hardly out of touch. And to a man, they have told me they are expecting revolution. One thought every Iranian new year would be the date the government would be overthrown. And he was serious. That is hardly the behavior of people who think their beloved leader is being demonized by America and Rupert Murdoch.
Next, let us look at the "Israel lobby". Supposedly, this lobby chased Dean out of the race How? If it is a right wing group operating through right wing media, how did it chase a Democrat out of the Democrat primaries? Do Democrats take voting advice from Sean Hannity? Does Rupert Murdoch control the left too? I just can't see how the "right wing media" (Fox should more properly be called the "center" media, but we are so used tot he far left MSM that it appears to be right), could influence the Democrat primaries.
I will leave the rest of this topic for later, as the myth of the "Israel lobby" requires an essay of its own.
Greenwald also commits a fundamental error, one common to the MSM, when using polls. He uses polls but does not provide the actual questions asked, instead providing a "helpful summary". Only the very first poll actually shows the text, and that one is so vaguely worded as to be meaningless. In all the others, the wording is missing, making it impossible to tell if loaded words were used to skew results.
And even the one where the wording was given is a bit absurd. "Should your country take the side of Israel, the Palestinians or neither" can be taken so many different ways. Greenwald takes "even handed" as a two state solution, while some see that as taking the Palestinian side. The reading of these answers requires making assumptions about the political beliefs of the respondents which are not obvious. When it comes to blockading Gaza, what is the even-handed approach for a foreign government? Staying out? Forcing an end to the blockade? One's own political biases show in how one interprets "even handed".
And that is the real problem with Greenwald's essay. He assumes everyone shares his interpretation of even handed, and that simply is not true. It may work on the
Salon readership, but that doesn't prove much. An echo chamber producing an echo is not a surprise, but not proof either.