We Would All Be Better Off If the Washington Post Just Stopped Printing Tomorrow

Atrios reads the Washington Post--which nobody should have to do--and finds Chris Cillizza And Shailagh Murray. The lead:

In Swing Districts, Democratic Enthusiasm Is Harder to Come By: Conventional wisdom dictates that Democratic voters are thrilled with their choices for president, bursting at the seams to rally behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) or whoever gets the party's nod next year. A recent survey by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, however, showed Clinton and Obama trailing former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R) in the 31 Democratic-held House districts regarded as most imperiled in 2008, and even potentially serving as a drag on those lawmakers' reelection chances. The poll was conducted in August but has not been previously reported. It paints a "sobering picture" for Democrats, according to a memo by Lake and Daniel Gotoff that accompanies the poll report...

Atrios writes:

Blogger Ethics Panel: So why is "Democratic pollster" Celinda Lake running push polls about Obama and Clinton? Why are Cillizza and the Devil running them as news? More importantly, why isn't Cillizza telling us that Celinda Lake works for the rival Biden campaign? I know he knows this, because he told me himself...

Indeed, Cillizza did:

Celinda Lake Joins Biden's 2008 Team: If Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (Ill.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) are the hares of the 2008 Democratic nomination race, Sen. Joe Biden (Del.) is aiming to be the tortoise. While the announcements of Clinton and Obama have dominated the news over the past week, Biden continues to soldier on -- slowly building a national political team. The latest addition to the team is Celinda Lake, who will handle polling for Biden's presidential effort. Lake, a well-known pollster among the chattering class, had a very good 2006 as the lead pollster for Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) as well as Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) and Tim Walz (D-Minn.). All three beat Republican incumbents...

And it's true: the name of Celinda Lake's employer, Joe Biden, doesn't appear in the Cillizza-Murray article. And the wording of Lake's question?

"Some people say [your Democratic incumbent] is a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton and will support her liberal agenda of big government and higher taxes if she becomes president," the poll stated, before asking respondents whether they would still vote for their incumbent or choose a Republican candidate...

Comments

[Paine from the Left]

This is why I read the blogs. A quick deconstruction of the WP story and we have the truth behind the facile reporting.

[Paine from the Left]

This is why I read the blogs. A quick deconstruction of the WP story and we have the truth behind the facile reporting.

[Floyd County Democrat]

Did Celinda Lake do that poll for Joe Biden? Does she have other clients, or is the shoestring Biden campaign emplying her full time? It sounds to me like she's trying out likely Rethuglican narratives to see how they do. I don't know the answers to these questions. I am just a rural Iowa voter who has been to a couple of Biden events and been impressed with his straight talk.