After people buy a product and don’t “like it” they sue the vendor. When I see these suits, I know they haven’t paid the bill and want to get off the hook.

To the Marxists, the numbers need to be tweeked to reflect the utopian ideology and not rely on reality.

Gallup needs to be sent to re-education camp or number cooking school.

It’s possible, I suppose, but it’s not terribly rational, with no upside and lots of downside over a nearly-meaningless issue.

You’ve just described President Choom’s administration in a nutshell.

Never underestimate the dishonesty of a democrat.

Why not? It looks bad, and it might well be criminality.

There is no reason to presume that this effort is wholly legitimate, and this is the standard of the modern politically game.

In WWII, we didn’t defeat the Germans be refusing to use blitzkrieg – we won by doing it better then they did.

Who may I call at Gallup to discuss the facts of life?

I do bag man/ lobby work for a tithe off the top.

And I never snitch.

Matthew Boyle does his best to connect dots

The fact that the dots exist at all.. in a near linear line,… from a WH prone to intimidation and thuggery..

Why do the stupid thing of calling a polling agency to the WH and demanding they explain their methodology at all…

It’s clear Gallop’s executives feel it IS politically motivated, or why say so in e-mails they never thought would be made public?

Holder is absolutely fine with the raging destruction he caused in Mexico with his fast and furious program.. what are 300 dead potential undocumented democrats to the cause after all….. That he might attempt to bully a polling company seems small potatoes compared to what he’s already been willing to do.

I don’t know why you and Malor are tying yourselves into knots trying to find a “reasonable” explanation for why Obama would sue a polling firm that’s making him look bad.”

Doomberg on September 6, 2012 at 11:17 AM

It’s a good career move to always give little Bammie the BOTD. It’s the BOR model.

Is DoJ suit against Gallup retaliation for bad Obama poll numbers?

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Is the Pope Catholic?

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Better question:

Is Valerie Jarrett behind the DoJ suit against Gallup?

This exchange took place in the spring of this year. The problem with the “retaliation” theory is that the dispute between Gallup and the DoJ goes back to 2009. Boyle reports that long after the jump.

The problem with this view is that DOJ has the discretion to sit on it or pursue it. Also, isn’t this already in court and would be settled in any event and is there a difference in deep pockets by DOJ entering the suit? Depending on the answers to these question, then add this to a problem with this view.

It’s possible, I suppose, but it’s not terribly rational, with no upside and lots of downside over a nearly-meaningless issue.

Potential criminal prosecution is not a meaningless issue. Defense costs is not a meaningless issue. What’s not terribly rational is thinking that your estimation of upside and downside is the same as the WH’s estimation in deciding whether to do something or not.

The point is not that complaints about polls are a dime a dozen and your example that you complain about polls all the time is a non sequitur; you have no stake in the poll.

The point is that the issue of DOJ action could have been dropped down the DOJ memory hole, like so many others have been. And it’s not necessarily about intimidation of Gallup, but of others. It’s about dirt and the uses of it, since ‘everyone, on average, commits three felonies a day’.

I don’t mean to be harsh about your argument, Ed. It’s possible you are right. What animates my commenting is the substitution of your yardsticks for measuring rational, timing, holding grudges, weighing consequences, etc, for the Administration’s. I admire your desire to be fair, a yardstick you employ frequently but has black and blue marks all over it from the Obama Administration touching it with a 20-foot pole.

No Doubt.

verbaluce on September 6, 2012 at 11:31 AM

Boyle’s piece is more analysis than journalism,

Real genuine journalism is dead and buried and has been since Walter Cronkite turned the most decisive American Victory in the Vietnam War into a Victory for the North Vietnamese.

No.

verbaluce on September 6, 2012 at 11:31 AM

…Denial is a river in Egypt.
beadunce on September 6, 2012 at 11:70 AM

This just looks like an effort to connect dots that simply aren’t connectable.

Doesn’t that also pretty well describe the joint Democrat/Media witch hunt against the White House that lasted from 2001 to 2008? Why, yes, yes it does.

I think it has to do with a continuing fear among conservative bloggers and journalists of appearing too “extremist.”
Doomberg on September 6, 2012 at 11:33 AM

How about the fact we are too close to the election to make it worth your while if you won. Ed did the thing you can do in the present which is put out the word Axelrod is tweaking Gallup.

That’s why it is surprising they would go after Gallup as opposed to Rasmussen or someone else. Gallup has pretty much always been loyal to The Party, why try to make an example of it?
AZfederalist on September 6, 2012 at 11:30 AM

Rasmussen doesn’t get his money from the Dems. I posted above that if Axelrod complained to Rasmussen who gets his bread buttered on the right he would laugh and Axelrod knows this. Gallup on the other hand is getting money from dems.

And this kind of thumb sucking is why conservatives regularly lose politically.

Is the Obama administration trying to pressure Gallup? It sure looks like it.

Is this particular suit being driven in any part by the administration’s animus? It isn’t clear.

Now you can argue in an ideal world then that we should leave the issue be – a President and his retainers should be above this kind of action. But the Obama administration has not been in other cases, and more to the point this kind of Marquis of Queensborough fighting is exactly the road to defeat.

Journalists and legislators should be “asking questions”, demanding to see every document related to this action, and putting pressure on the administration to prove the suit is not politically motivated.

Do we want to win or do we want to lose graciously?

18-1 on September 6, 2012 at 11:27 AM

I think it has to do with a continuing fear among conservative bloggers and journalists of appearing too “extremist.” The message seems to be “We’re not one of those crazies. We’re the ‘reasonable’ conservatives.” The problem is it actually appears less reasonable in this case to give the government the benefit of the doubt given their substantial history of using their various arms to harass businesses they don’t like, such as Standard & Poor’s.