We all knew that regardless of the facts, the blame for any government shutdown would fall squarely on the shoulders of the Republicans and, for those who chose to dig a little deeper, on the Tea Party specifically. A (deeply flawed) CNN/ORC poll released September 30th, the day the shutdown was looming, indicated that, as the headline said, “GOP would bear the brunt of shutdown blame.”
“If the federal government shuts down starting Tuesday because of a bitter partisan battle over the new health care law, more people say congressional Republicans rather than President Barack Obama would be responsible, according to a new national survey.”
Looking at the survey data itself, the headline could just as easily have been – and with equivalent accuracy:
“Americans are increasingly opposed to Obamacare” with 57% of respondents opposed to it, up from a low of 50% earlier in the year and nearly back to the 59% it had seen in 2010 and 2011.
“Americans are evenly divided over whether President Obama has acted as an adult or a spoiled child,” with 49% seeing him as behaving like a responsible adult to 47% like a spoiled child.
Another headline could be “Americans see congressional representatives of both parties as spoiled children:” while 69% of Americans see the Republicans in Congress as “spoiled children,” 58% see Democrat congressional representatives as spoiled children as well.
So while there is ample data within this poll that is of interest, the headline screams a warning and an accusation: GOP – you’ll be blamed for the shutdown, NOT the Democrats.
Except for this little detail. The survey never asked whether respondents felt the Democrats were to blame!
This was the question posed:
If the federal government shuts down, do you think that Barack Obama or the Republicans in
Congress would be more responsible for that?
Nope, couldn’t be the Democrats!
How revealing is this? It not only skirts the whole possibility that it could be the Democrats in Congress might be at fault, but reflects what happens to be the sad reality that the likelihood of any Democrat voting differenly from how his or her president wants him/her to is, frankly, zero. And indeed, not a one did.
Even as they chastise the Republicans for being divided, and even as Republicans blame one another, the reality remains: at least one could consider that they might be to blame, where Democrats, like children, can hardly be seen as responsible even for their own behavior.
The question as posed reveals their bias; their choosing to headline this response reveals their propagandizing against the GOP in the lead-up to the shutdown decision.
The good news? Despite the media’s dishonest coverage of Obamacare, Americans are increasingly against it.
As long as we work to get the truth out there, we might have a chance