Topic: WorldNetDaily
Fritz Wenzel, WorldNetDaily's ethically challenged pollster, is keeping up the bias in his latest work for WND.
A Jan. 16 WND article by Bob Unruh details Wenzel poll results claiming that 73 percent of respondents said that they didn't mind that state and local governments were acquiring "military-style equipment and armaments." Unruh then quotes Wenzel offering up his own invented interpretation of the results:
“This is perhaps because, the survey shows, a wide majority of Americans doubt their local or state police would ever engage in the imposition of some sort of martial law. Such imposition would severely restrict personal freedoms, but 59 percent said they just don’t think such a thing would happen here in America,” he continued.
“That is largely because 51 percent said they cannot conceive of any circumstances or actions by government that would so cause them to agree it is time for a citizen revolution against the government. Just 18 percent said they could conceive of something the government could do to cause them to want to revolt.
“This is a testament to the longstanding stability that the country has known, but also spells a risk of tyranny. If government leaders know the citizenry is unwilling to revolt and they know their law enforcement agencies are well-equipped to put down any uprising with military-style weaponry, one could argue that those leaders might be tempted to impose tyranny on the country in some form or another,” he said.
The next day, Unruh served up some more Wenzel results, this time claiming that "one in seven Americans believes that the nation eventually will be ruled by a dictator." But the questions are decidedly leading:
- In world history, whenever a democratic society similar to ours has failed, it has been followed by a dictatorship – usually a brutal dictatorship. If the current American federal government were to fail, what do you think would be the most likely outcome?
- Some opinion leaders in America today say the current federal government of the United States is so badly in debt and is so bloated as a dysfunctional bureaucracy, and faces such grave threats from foreign enemies, that it is unlikely to last much longer. How likely do you think it is that our national government will collapse during your lifetime from the combination of these serious problems facing the country?
- How likely do you think it is that the country will collapse during the next 20 years?
- How likely do you think it is that the country will collapse during the next 10 years?
Then, in a Jan. 19 article, Unruh quotes Wenzel going rogue from the facts again:
“At the beginning of a second presidential term, you generally expect the country to be in full-bore optimism, in part as an endorsement of the re-elected president and in part a reflection of the nation settled in its current course,” said Fritz Wenzel, president of his strategies organization.
“We saw that with Reagan, we saw that with Clinton, and we saw that with George W. Bush. But that is not what we find with Obama,” he said.
“The country is already in full-on depression, as just 34 percent said they think things in America are headed in the right direction. Even among Democrats, just 62 percent said they think things are headed in the right direction, an abysmal figure for the president’s own fellow party members.”
He continued: “There is just no sugar-coating this – America may have liked Obama more than Romney, but they have no confidence in his leadership. This spells nothing but tough sledding for the nation over the next four years. Politically, it’s bound to get very ugly as the nation continues in a downward spiral and leaders in Washington point fingers across the political aisle. Forget solutions and reform for the next four years – the only thing coming from Washington will be blame for our sorry condition. This survey finding reflects that the nation is in the process of giving up hope.”
Wenzel somehow manages to extrapolate all of that from a single poll finding that 34 percent of respondents say the country is moving in the wrong direction.
Way to put partisan politics ahead of scientific polling, Fritz.
