Pollslinger: The Fall of John Zogby

Arab-American pollster John Zogby's reputation has been on a downward slide since November 2004, when the 311 Kerry electoral votes his company had confidently predicted failed to materialize.

Now Zogby has produced a highly questionable poll for an anonymous client working through LeMoyne College's Center for Peace and Global Studies:

Le Moyne College’s Center for Peace and Global Studies: Agenda Politics Or Polls?
Obviously the name alone of Le Moyne College’s Center for Peace and Global Studies is enough to give one pause over a possible agenda behind their recent involvement in a Zogby poll in the headlines today.

Also of note, John Zogby has also been a speaker at events sponsored by the center.

What makes this poll so special that Zogby has taken extraordinary measures to generate publicity for it? From Redstate:

I have been a member of Zogby's polling panel for several years now. Usually when I get the request marc@mail2.zogby.com it is only to take part in one of the surveys. Today to my surprise was different.

Never, ever, have I received from Zogby any poll result, let alone the full report. Zogby wants to make sure that this poll was trumpeted far and wide. His bias in 2004 is now on full display in 2006 without any pretense of impartiality.

And Generation Why? points out a rather obvious internal polling conflict:

Why is it safe to assume this? The very next survey question sheds some light:
"According to recent polls, about half of Americans favor a rapid withdrawal and half favor an open-ended occupation of Iraq. Which do you believe best describes the motives of those favoring rapid withdrawal?"
36.9 percent said it was because "they are unpatriotic". Unpatriotic! So if we're to believe Kristof's analysis, then over a third of our troops are "urging" something they believe is "unpatriotic".

Zogby International has been in trouble since their 2004 Presidential election polling fiasco:

Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - Following an Election Day prediction that Democratic candidate John Kerry would win more than 300 electoral votes and the presidency, one of America's most well known polling firms continued the job Wednesday of explaining its flawed projection

Did Zogby take this as a wakeup call to examine their methods? They did not:

Walcott told the group assembled that Zogby International had questions of its own pertaining to the election.

"We have received thousands of letters and phone calls regarding irregularities - many of which center on early exit polling results that were uncharacteristically inaccurate in several battleground states; questionable practices at polling stations that may have resulted in votes not being counted accurately; and in Ohio, as with other swing states, the automated Diebold machines were particularly disturbing because they offered no voting receipts" she said.

All this begs the question, which won't be asked in the mainstream media: did Zogby tailor the results of this poll to suit his own biases and fit the agenda of his anonymous patron?

Via The Jawa Report.