Leftover turkey

Bush's standing rose in a poll conducted immediately after the trip.

So says the Washington Post. And yet, later in the same article, they give the figures:

A poll conducted four days after Thanksgiving by the National Annenberg Election Survey put Bush's job approval rating at 61 percent, up from 56 percent during the four days before the holiday. His job disapproval rating dropped from 41 percent to 36 percent. His personal popularity increased from 65 percent to 72 percent. The polls of 789 people before Thanksgiving and 847 people after Thanksgiving each had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

I don't put much stock in polls anyway, but what this actually says, at an error margin of + or - 3, is that the poll says nothing. 61-3=58 and 56+3=59. Check all the numbers - if the high number in each set can be reduced by 3 and the low number can be increased by 3, then the actual ratings could actually show that his job approval ratings went down a point, and his personal popularity rating went up only 1 point, which would be tantamount to saying nothing changed.

Some of the reporters left behind at Crawford Middle School, where they work when Bush is staying at his Texas ranch, felt they had been deceived by White House accounts of what Bush would be doing on Thanksgiving.

Maybe they felt that way because that's what was happening to them.

Correspondent Mark Knoller said Sunday on "CBS Evening News" that the misleading information and deception were understandable, but that he had been "filing radio reports that amounted to fiction."

Which is pretty much what you've doing all along anyway, Mark. Read this.

From the Daily Mislead:

Making things worse, the White House revised its story after revelations of the distortion. The White House now says "it had left the wrong impression" and that actually the conversation took place between Air Force One and the airport tower in London. But again, British Airways refuted this tale, with a spokesman for the company telling media "that none of its pilots has come forward to acknowledge either making or overhearing the purported conversation."

Sources:
"Bush steals away to Baghdad in a surprise visit to American soldiers", International Herald Tribune, 11/28/2003.
"Pilots Didn't Radio Air Force One, Airline Says", Reuters, 12/02/2003.
"Bush Aide Clarifies Air Force One Sighting", Washington Post, 12/03/2003.
"Changing a Story on the Fly", Newsday, 12/03/2003.

....hey, do what you want....you will anyway.