A right-wing website in Louisiana takes great issue with that poll I mentioned that showed a lot of Republicans down there blamed Barack Obama for the poor government response to Hurricane Katrina. They make a few good points. Asking "Who do you think was more responsible for the poor response to Hurricane Katrina: George W. Bush or Barack Obama?" is in a way, kind of a "When did you stop beating your wife?" question. The "Don't Know" response was 44% and they say those are all people who "saw through" the question and picked that option as a result.
Well, maybe some of them did. I mean, if someone asked me Stephen Colbert's oft-put question about whether George W. Bush was a great president or the greatest president, I wouldn't reply "Don't know." I would have refused to answer…but maybe some folks think "Don't Know" is a synonym for "That's a trick question." What they can't spin — and they don't even try — is that 29% that thought Obama was responsible for something that occurred years before he took office.
The funny part of it is that there is a way to spin it. It would go something like, "The 29% is indicative of Louisiana residents who are madder about what Obama hasn't done since he took office to repair damage and prepare for the next big storm." I don't believe that's true but it wouldn't be bad spin.
The response describes the pollster — Public Policy Polling — as "a left-wing outfit specializing in lots of push-polling." I haven't heard them charged with push-polling by anyone whose definition of a slanted question wasn't that the wording didn't favor Republicans. But P.P.P. is, as was admitted in the story, an outfit that works with Democratic institutions. They have also been one of the more accurate polling companies the last few years. They called the 2012 election pretty close to the way it went down and where they were off, they weren't always off in favor of the Democrat.
That said, yeah, it was kind of a trick question, especially if they didn't tally respondents who declined to answer. And it is, after all, only one poll…and one poll can always be an outlier. Still, I kinda half regret posting it since it's being interpreted to mean more than it probably does.