From a Democratic Weblog published by Ruy Texeira, the author of "The Emerging Democratic Majority":

June 11, 2004

"More On That LA Times Poll
First, on the controversy that has emerged about the new Los Angeles Times (LAT) poll. In essence, the criticism of the poll comes down to this: there are too many Democrats in the poll, which explains how Kerry can be leading Bush by 7, despite losing to Bush among independents and having a smaller margin among Democrats than Bush has among Republicans, and how the Democrats can be 19 points ahead in the generic congressional ballot.

And it is true, as LAT poll Susan Pinkus has admitted, that the current LAT poll has has an unusually large 13 point Democratic advantage on party ID (the sample is 38 percent Democrats, 25 percent Republicans and 24 percent independents)." [snip...]

http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/archives/000521.php

Wrong, wrong, wrong...

That information WAS on their site, I saw it the day it came out, and now that the word has spread about the blatant bias of the polling method, THEY pulled it down, with no retraction, no comment, no nothing....

So now who's the sleaze-ball?

Mike

__________________
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1982 300D-gone---sold to a buddy
_____
1985 300TD
270,000 miles
_____
1994 E320
not my favorite, but the wife wanted it

www.myspace.com/mikemover
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I apologize for making my retort a little too personal, but this is exactly what this is - fodder for the propaganda machine.

Drudge says:
TWISTED: LA Times Poll Had Sample With 38% Democrats, 25% Republicans
Tue Jun 15 2004 10:13:47 ET

Sen. John Kerry "has taken big lead," according "to an L.A. Times poll."

But the Times poll that showed Kerry "beating Bush by 7 points" has created a controversy over whether the poll's sample accurately reflects the population as whole, ROLL CALL reports on Tuesday.

"Not counting independents, the Times' results were calculated on a sample made up of 38 percent Democrats and 25 percent Republicans -- a huge and unheard-of margin," ROLL CALL claims.

Of course, the web page you posted, says something quite different:

Of course, no one can "prove" anything here. But I, for one, find these figures (the Democratic party ID advantage and generic congressional ballot advantage) generally plausible, if perhaps a bit on the high side. There are ample grounds for thinking there is, in fact, a surge toward the Democrats and their positions and away from the Republicans and their positions among the broad electorate. A growing Democratic party ID advantage is a logical consequence of that surge, since party ID does not remain stable as political conditions change.

Indeed, the Democratic party ID advantage has been growing ever since the post-9/11 surge in Republican party ID ended sometime in 2003, so the LAT 13 point Democratic advantage, while seemingly high, fits well with trend. Note also that it is not without recent precedent: a recent ABC News poll gave Democrats a 10 point party ID lead and a January CBS News/New York Times poll gave the Dems a 13 point lead (though note that this included leaners). The same is true of the Democrats' big advantage on the generic Congressional ballot; public polls have been showing that advantage growing steadily for quite awhile and a number of polls have shown the Democrats with double-digit leads (though, admittedly, none has shown a lead as high as LAT's).

Conclusion: there is no good reason to ignore the results of this poll (unless you're Matthew Dowd, of course, who has his own reasons for doing so). Like all polls, it should be taken with a grain of salt and considered in relationship to other polls. But there's no need, in my view, to be any more stringent that that.

************************
Drudge's little clip gives the opposite impression. And why not? At $200 a clip just to read news on the Roll Call website, how's anyone going to know they are being given a ration of poop? The fact is, the make up of the electorate pretty much matches that breakdown, and this was a valid poll. Drudge spins it hard, making the LA Times, his sworn enemy from way back, look dishonest. His word "TWISTED" is his own insertion. His remarks in quotes, probably came from the article, but are interspersed in sentences, so who knows what they mean in context. Next, since the web page you posted says its not a huge and unheard of margin, his quotes from Roll Call are even more suspect. So essentially, Drudge has just told a lie about the LA Times, and now its a convenient new "fact" for the right: Polls showing Bush losing are rigged. This "fact" will be cited every time a left bias news organization prints a poll.


If anyone out there has a Roll Call subscription, I would love to see the actual article. Its so convenient of drudge to report something that is very hard to verify.

How do we know what your saying is true? Drudge doesn't mention what poll. These polls are indentified by date. What poll did they pull?

The poll doesn't seem to be pulled:

http://images.latimes.com/media/acrobat/2004-06/12978892.pdf

Now it's back?....Last two times I looked for it, I found nothing.....Interesting....I think I'll save it in my "offline" files this time.

Mike

__________________
_____
1979 300 SD
350,000 miles
_____
1982 300D-gone---sold to a buddy
_____
1985 300TD
270,000 miles
_____
1994 E320
not my favorite, but the wife wanted it

www.myspace.com/mikemover
www.myspace.com/openskystudio
www.myspace.com/speedxband
www.myspace.com/openskyseparators
www.myspace.com/doubledrivemusic

I dont think the point was at all about "giving in to the terrorists". The bottom line was that Aznar's government attempted to mislead the public by jumping to conclusions that would have been politically advantageous (had they been true). They were so quick to highlight their hard line stance against the seperatists ahead of the elections that they were caught in a lie.

Compounding this was that the Spanish public did not support the war in Iraq, but Aznar persisted with it. The Socialists promised to disengage from our "adventure" over there...

I still do not see how this translates into "giving into terrorists". Is the Spanish population supposed to elect a leader they do not like just because a secondary effect of the election is that Al Quaeda is pleased with the result? Does that mean I should vote for Bush (despite believing he's one of the worst presidents ever) simply because Al Quaeda will get enjoyment from seeing Bush taken down?

Back in what game? AFAIK, the only thing Spain pulled out of was Iraq. What does that have to do with Al Qaida?

Are you talking about Spain? I am not familiar with their system.

American juries do some goofy things, but having juries is probably the most effective means of keeping the system honest.

Having said that, maybe Spain is making progress in the fight against al Qaida: Here's a link to Wednesday's Washington Post.

Full text:

Spanish Judge Ties Suspects To 9/11
Formal Charges Against 15 Likely
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; Page A18


MADRID, June 15 -- A Spanish investigating judge today said he had concluded a comprehensive, eight-year probe into Islamic extremist activity in Spain, and his report will likely lead to formal charges and trials for 15 suspected militants accused of helping to plan the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, according to media reports here citing the unreleased document.




The judge, Baltasar Garzon, did not make his conclusions public, but the Spanish news reports, citing court sources, said 14 people now in custody and one man free on bail face terrorism charges for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Under Spain's legal system, judges have wide latitude to conduct lengthy investigations. The results form the basis of prosecutions, indictments and trials.

Among those named in the report is Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, also known as Abu Dahdah, the alleged leader of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network in Spain. The news reports said he would be charged with 3,000 counts of murder for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Spanish investigators have said that a principal suspect charged in the March train bombings in Madrid, a Moroccan immigrant named Jamal Zougam, was a follower of Yarkas. Yarkas has been jailed since November 2001.

Another judge, Juan del Olmo, is investigating the train bombings.

Of the 15 people reportedly named by Garzon, only one is free on bail: Taysir Alouni, who was born in Syria, lives in southern Spain and works for the pan-Arabic television network al-Jazeera. Alouni interviewed bin Laden shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, and Spanish news reports Tuesday said he was accused of providing money and information to al Qaeda.

Court sources told news agencies that trials for the 15 could begin in about a year.

The only other prosecutions from the Sept. 11 attacks have been in Hamburg, where the conviction of one suspect was overturned on appeal and another defendant was acquitted, and the current federal case in Northern Virginia against Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen who is charged with conspiracy. He was arrested a month before the attacks on an unrelated immigration charge.

Garzon began his probe into Islamic terrorist groups in Spain in 1996. The investigation intensified after the Sept. 11 attacks and led last year to several indictments, including charges brought against bin Laden. Garzon and investigators have said Spain has jurisdiction to bring charges for the Sept. 11 attacks because much of the planning is believed to have taken place here, as well as in Germany.

In March and April, Spanish investigators, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the leader of the Sept. 11 hijack team, Mohamed Atta, was known to have visited Spain twice in the months before the attacks, in January and July 2001. On July 7, 2001, with the attack planning in its final stages, Atta flew from Miami to Madrid on an American Airlines flight using an Egyptian passport and a U.S. visa, a Spanish investigator said. Atta traveled to Salou, a beach resort in the Catalan region, and stayed one night, July 17, at the small Montsant Hotel, paying $30 with a credit card for a room.

Atta also traveled in July to Tarragona, where much of the final planning for the Sept. 11 attacks is believed to have taken place. Investigators have said he rented a car and are trying to trace his credit card records to determine his movements. Atta left Spain for Miami on July 19, an investigator said.

Yarkas had drawn the attention of Spanish investigators since at least 1996. He has been described as the leader of an al Qaeda "sleeper cell" operating in Spain and is said to have maintained close links with key operatives in Europe. Yarkas is also believed to have traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Spanish radio station Cadena Ser on Tuesday quoted Garzon's report as saying it was "evidently clear" that Yarkas "had been in relations with some of the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 massacre" and that he had given "ideological preparation and financial and logistical support to diverse members of the organization" that moved from Spain to carry out missions in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia and Indonesia.

Investigators in March and April said that Yarkas appeared to support his network largely by using credit cards stolen from the mail.

Much of Garzon's information came from a Syrian member of al Qaeda, Khayata Kattan, who was arrested this year in Jordan and extradited to Spain. Kattan made two appearances before Garzon, on Feb. 4 and 5, and detailed in a taped declaration how he spent time in a Bosnian training camp in 1995 before coming to Spain as a money-carrier for Yarkas, taking cash to militants in Chechnya and Kenya.


© 2004 The Washington Post Company

Would you mind explaining in what way Spain's withdrawal has benefitted Al-Queda exactly?
And has it never crossed your mind that the bombing perhaps stopped because the Spanish actually did manage to catch/kill the plotters soon after, instead of seizing the opportunity to pursue a hidden 'Lebensraum' agenda and settle an old family score?

__________________
2011 Prius

Bingo (except maybe for the Lebensraum part, I think there can be a good faith dispute about that part).

I didn't know I was "supporting" Spain. What I am supporting is democracy. The government of Spain, the governements of Russia, France and Germany are all doing what the majority of their people want, which is to stay the hell out of Iraq. To say these countries are somehow "bad" or "against us" is to say they should have leaders who act against the will of their people. Thier leaders are doing what they are supposed to do - executing the wishes of their people. We could use a little of that here.

We need to accept the fact that most of the world's people are disgusted with our actions in Iraq. They're showing it with their votes. Hopefully, our people will to, so we can put an end to this war crime.

On the Spainish justice system, anyone who had the guts to go after Pinochet and the rest of the South American fascists who got away with murdering thousands of their citizens can't be all bad. From what I understand, their system gives the judges wide latitude to seek out injustice, and they tend to rely on independent panels of experts rather than juries to decide guilt or innocence. I believe the system in France and Germany is the same. Their judicial traditions come from Catholic Inquisitions rather than English Common Law. It is very different from our system, but the system seems to work well for them. There is actually a movement afoot in the US I've read about, to replace juries with retired judges and impartial scientific experts because psychological techniques have become so sophisticated we are now getting OJs and Terry MicNichols instead of justice thanks to muddle headed and easily swayed jurors. Here in Houston, we had a reclusive million who cut off his neighbors head, carried it around in a duffel bag for a few days, and then thru the dismembered body into Galveston Bay in front of witnesses. After his arrest, he posted a multi-million dollar bail and fled. After his capture, he hired OJ's old team and a top Texas defense lawyer. Verdict? Innocent. Reason? "Self defense".

News note:

At least 833 U.S. soldiers have been killed since the war began in March 2003, with 693 deaths since May 1 of that year, when Bush declared major hostilities over, Pentagon figures show.

B, spare me the neocon bull.
You forgot to answer: exactly what has Al Queda gained by Spain's withdrawal?

__________________
2011 Prius

They have gained one hugely important, very bad thing: Undeniable proof that they can exercise control over elections and foreign policy using well-placed and well-timed terrorism.

This will give al queda nothing but courage to do more harm.

Mike

__________________
_____
1979 300 SD
350,000 miles
_____
1982 300D-gone---sold to a buddy
_____
1985 300TD
270,000 miles
_____
1994 E320
not my favorite, but the wife wanted it

www.myspace.com/mikemover
www.myspace.com/openskystudio
www.myspace.com/speedxband
www.myspace.com/openskyseparators
www.myspace.com/doubledrivemusic