Poll results show that, by 56 percent to 33 percent, Americans find the president of Freedonia more credible.
OK, so Freedonia is a fictional country popularized by Groucho Marx. But I wanted to get that out there on the Internet before someone else does. I was on one of my frequent rants this morning about how all the editors took buyouts because they were making too much money, and all synapses, public and private, have stopped working.
The poll results I used above were actually a comparison of Trump to special council Robert Mueller in a Washington Post-Schar School poll that is behind a paywall at the moment. But I wondered who authorized a comparison of Trump, who is incapable of uttering consecutive truthful sentences, and Mueller, who hasn't talked in public for 18 months.
I am depressed, but not surprised, that Trump gets 33 percent believability in the face of the plethora of checked facts that have been shown to be untrue but still rattle around in the brain of POTUS. But I am astonished that so many Americans remember so much about Mueller back when he spoke from time to time that they can have an opinion on his credibility. Since he got his current job he has made Garbo sound like an auctioneer.
My conclusion was that the poll was another useless bit of hot air masquerading as news.
That was until I read Aaron Blake's follow-up analysis of the hot air. You may be able to read it at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/12/this-new-poll-shows-our-looming-mueller-mess/?utm_term=.735553240621
Blake, quoting a Post blogger, sums up:
The results are telling: As The Post’s Matt Zapotosky noted, most Republicans believe Mueller hasn’t proven crimes that he actually has proven, and most Democrats believe Mueller has proven things he hasn’t even alleged.Aaron Blake suggests that what I considered a baseless poll has shown us what Americans are going to think about a report that hasn't been issued and about which their knowledge to date just about matches that of the freshman congressperson who thought we were already doing too much for Freedonia.
That's why I go off on these rants.
Freedonia has its own national anthem.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4OJGdtRx10
Tom, is that poll real, about the president of Freedonia being more credible than Trump? Whoever thought of taking that poll should win a comedy prize of some sort.
As for Mueller: he has seemed to run a pretty respectable operation in this instance. He had a leak problem early on but apparently he addressed it. I can only imagine the pressures that are being exerted on him to bend the investigation one way or the other. Credibility can be based on actions as well as words, and his resisting the urge to grandstand adds to his credibility, at least in my book. (Wish I could say the same about Comey.)
That part about what Republicans and Democrats believe: that's even more brilliant than the Freedonia poll.
I continue to think that we Christians can be countercultural simply by doing our best to live in reality and cling to what is true.
Jim, Read it all. The Trump/Freedonia poll result simply tracks the real result of the Trump/Mueller poll. I see that the way I wrote it may indicate it reflects a real poll. Sorry to do what I'm complaining about, misleading. (But I bet if a real poll was taken, that's pretty close to the result it would get.)
DeleteOk. I'm so bummed - it would have been so delicious if that was real! But it's not a total loss - I found a bunch of Marx Brothers clips on Youtube.
DeleteJim, I think you used your time wisely!
DeleteGood NRA song there. "They got guns, we got guns, all God's chillun' got guns".
DeleteMueller seems to be methodical and circumspect, and while lots of Democrats (Raber) are frustrated not to be privy to his investigations in real time, he has spared the nation a sideshow akin to the details released in the Ken Starr investigation.
ReplyDeleteBut Blake makes a good point, that people are running the investigation they want/hope for in their heads, and whatever the reality is, it will meet with resistance.
Ah, I have thought of "Duck Soup" often in the last few years as the real-life political farce unfolds on the world stage.