MoveOn.org has a full-page ad in today’s New York Times that caught the attention of Catholic League president William Donohue:
“In today’s New York Times, MoveOn.org attacks the methodology of the Gallup organization; it argues that a recent Gallup poll showing President Bush with a 14-point lead is exaggerated because it is predicated on more Republicans turning out to vote on election day than Democrats. The ad contends that Gallup has given Bush an inflated lead over John Kerry, thus affecting news coverage in a way that favors Bush.
“If this were all there were to the issue, it would be of no interest to the Catholic League. But we could not resist commenting on the way MoveOn.org blames the alleged bias of George Gallup Jr. on his Christian faith. At the end of the ad, it says, ‘Gallup, who is a devout evangelical Christian, has been quoted as calling his polling ‘a kind of ministry.’ The next line reads, ‘And a few months ago, he said, ‘the most profound purpose of polls is to see how people are responding to God.’
“Those guilty-as-charged lines were read by Gallup at a commencement address he gave at a theological seminary. No matter, George Soros, the billionaire left-wing Bush-hater who funds the website (MoveOn.org has compared Bush to Hitler), has discovered the real reason why Gallup is manipulating the public: Christian bias is at work. In doing so, Soros has impugned the integrity of all Christians. Only secularists, apparently, are capable of rendering an objective survey.
“For the record, in the final poll before the 2000 election, the predictions of Gallup and Zogby proved to be the most accurate. So what should we make of those who did the polling for USA Today/CNN, ABC news, CBS news, and all the other survey houses who offered the most faulty predictions? According to Soros’s logic, it must be that they have more of those biased Christians working for them than Gallup.
“Finally, George Gallup Jr. retired on May 31 and hasn’t conducted a poll since. So much for MoveOn.org’s accuracy.”
