MoveOn Demands Apology from Brokaw for Citing False Polling (in favor of McCain)

[cui bono]

On last Sunday's Meet The Press, Tom Brokaw closed down the show's Battle of the Campaign Flacks by deflecting the crux of David Axelrod's Iraq-judgement argument with poll numbers that he had at the ready:

MR. AXELROD: What has happened is, as Senator Obama predicted from the beginning, that we got distracted in Iraq and now Osama bin Laden, who was the person who attacked the United States, killed 3,000 American citizens, is now resurgent. He is stronger. And that's the result of the misbegotten decision of John McCain. And he stubbornly wants to continue, even as the Iraqis won't take responsibility, sitting on $79 billion of their own surplus while we spend $10 billion a month. It doesn't make sense. We can't take more of the same, Steve.


MR. BROKAW: In fairness to everybody here, I'm just going to end on one note, and that is that we continue to poll on who's best equipped to be commander in chief, and John McCain continues to lead in that category despite the criticism from Barack Obama by a factor of 53 to 42 percent in our latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

<snip>

MoveOn.org researched the matter, and found the polling numbers Brokaw was citing. They weren't in any recent poll conducted by NBC/WSJ. In fact, the recent NBC News/WSJ poll does not even include a question on "who's best equipped to be commander-in-chief." To get those 53-42 numbers, you have got to dial it back to the poll taken September 6-8 - significantly, the poll done after the Republican National Convention - to find those numbers sitting at question 14. The larger picture, of course, is that in head-to-head matchups - in NBC/WSJ now, NBC/WSJ then, all these polls from Sunday - is that those polled prefer Obama.

MoveOn has, naturally, asked Brokaw to apologize.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/30/moveon-demands-apology-fr_n_130538.html


MoveOn political action:
http://pol.moveon.org/emails/brokaw_poll.html

[TornadoTN]

1. Brokaw is a right-wing hack - he needs to be removed from the debates

Not only that, but they need to just put him into a commentator role on the network. He is not an anchor or a leader by any sense of the word.

[cui bono]

2. How can he be taken seriously when he pulls a stunt like this?

The problem is he has such a reputation that people watching will just accept that as fact.

[TornadoTN]

5. Which is why he is so dangerous - the right-wing inclined don't think for themselves

And a large part of this countries undecideds do the same damn thing.

[cui bono]

11. Yeah, before I paid too much attention I would have just believed what I heard

from these types of people because I assume they know what they're talking about. I didn't think about why they would slant one way or another.

It's good that the internet arrived. It has really helped to get out some real information to anyone who cares to find it.

[RagAss]

3. We need a groundswell to get him removed from debates

[cui bono]

4. How about from the airwaves in general?

[ellacott]

6. It was bad enough that he threw that poll out at the end of the show

I thought that was awful but to know now that he used an old poll. A lot of deliberation went into his decision to do that.

I know there are many Russert fans here but I've noticed a big difference in the network.

[vanderBeth]

7. This, among other things, is proof that he needs to be taken off campaign coverage.

I mean, at least Faux Noise stopped pretending.

[MadrasT]

8. Apologize, my ass.

He needs to pulled off debate moderation, pronto. Anyone who pulls that kind of malarky has no business "moderating" anything this critical to our future.

[Cha]

9. Tom Brokaw is a lying fucking Whore and is moderating

the next Debate! Can this shit get anymore biased in favor of the ugly rude mccain?

[bushisanidiot]

10. Brokaw carries the repukes water again. Not surprising from the MSM.

they keep sucking up to McPanic. I guess they're paychecks will get fatter if he wins. :P

[lurky]

12. I think he has a fetish for war veterans.

Evidenced by his "Greatest Generation" thing.

Regarding his allegiances, here's a telling excerpt from his Wikipedia bio:

From 1973-1976 he was an NBC News White House correspondent, covering the Watergate scandal. During this time, he was asked by the higher-rated CBS News to join it after CBS's management had decided its reporter, Dan Rather, was too hostile to then-President Richard Nixon. The switch never happened after word of it was leaked to the press.

[RagAss]

13. A serious, sick fetish !

[quispquake]

14. Brokaw really opened my eyes to media bias...

Back QUITE a few years ago, Brokaw was interviewing Marina Oswald. She came on to tell her story, but he pulled out a book by some hack that said Oswald did the Kennedy assassination alone. If he had just asked a question or two, I could see it, but he didn't let up on her, and let her tell her story...he just kept hammering her and hammering her about this book...she actually walked off (and I'm pretty sure it was live TV). I've hated him ever since...if Brokaw has an agenda, he won't allow any other viewpoints to take place...

[MoJoWorkin]

15. I just sent my email to protest Brokaw's obvious bias.

Citing things like the above inaccurate poll reporting, and the "mediating"(water carrying) for the McCain Campaign against his fellow commentators, Matthews and Olbermann.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7255630&mesg_id=7255630

[cui bono]

16. Me too.

[me b zola]

17. I will write in the morning to demand a public retraction of Brokaw's false info

I'd do it tonight but I'm so tired that I'm barely able to construct a coherent sentence.