You would think that the “Polling Director” at an important national newspaper like The Washington Post would need to actually know something about polling. Of course, you probably also thought the ombudsmen at the Post would need to know something about journalism which, as we learned, wasn’t the case.

So, with that it mind, consider the latest bit of poll reporting from the Post’s Polling Director, Rich Morin:

A majority of Americans initially support a controversial National Security Agency program to collect information on telephone calls made in the United States in an effort to identify and investigate potential terrorist threats, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. The new survey found that 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism

So, there you have it. Most people don’t mind what’s going on and whiny, terrorist-loving liberals need to put a sock in it so that the White House can get back to the business of spying on us.

Not so fast, Richie-boy. Let’s look at the actual question that the poll respondents answered:

It’s been reported that the National Security Agency has been collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. It then analyzes calling patterns in an effort to identify possible terrorism suspects, without listening to or recording the conversations. Would you consider this an acceptable or unacceptable way for the federal government to investigate terrorism?

Gee, that seems pretty innocent. I might have said yes to that. But let’s rephrase the question so that it reflects what is actually going on.

It’s been reported that the U.S. military has been collecting the phone call records of 224 million telephone customers and has the records of virtually every call made in America since 9/11. This data collection process is thought by some legal scholars to be illegal. The military has not revealed what it does with those records or whether it has provided any information relating to terrorist activities. Would you consider this program acceptable or unacceptable?

I bet the answers to that question would have been significantly different, don’t you? Morin tries to hide the implicit bias of the poll by simply saying that poll supports the NSA program without revealing that the question didn’t accurately describe the NSA program itself.

Morin has always tried to inject his right-wing agenda into the Post’s polling, as you might remember from the fit he pitched when he was questioned about why the Post didn’t do a poll on the numbers of Americans who favored impeachment.

In light of all this, it’s probably not unfair for me to remark that Morin is only a few IQ points and one vowel short of being a moron.

UPDATE: Not surprisingly a Newsweek poll released today comes to precisely the opposite conclusion and finds that a majority of Americans (53 percent) think that the NSA program goes too far.