Writing in The Hill, pollster Mark Mellman took me to the cyber-woodshed yesterday, claiming that my post referencing his work on a 1999 poll commissioned by defense contractor Lockheed Martin provided an "inaccurate rendition of it" and reveals my "schizophrenic" relationship with polls.
I beg to differ.
To get the whole story, read my original April 2000 column on the commissioned poll -- but, in short, I wrote about how Lockheed Martin had hired Mellman to conduct a poll that, lo and behold, just happened to find that 56 percent of Americans (or at least the 800 Mellman was able to keep from hanging up on him when he called) would support a $2 billion increase in funding for "tracking planes to be flown in drug producing areas" -- a finding that helped provide cover for the Clinton White House's proposal to send $1.3 billion in drug war money to the human-rights-challenged government of Colombia.
According to Mellman, that wasn't the case. At all. Mellman claims that Lockheed didn't hire him to further its economic interests and get a chunk of drug war cash. No, it hired him to produce "a serious study on the underexplored subject of drug policy." Very noble of Lockheed.
He castigates me for assuming "the question was tailor-made to serve the client's interest. In fact, the opposite was true -- I insisted on including the item, fearing that whatever support people might express for interdiction in general might evaporate at the thought of vast spending on airplanes." Yes, I'm sure that's exactly what happened. Lockheed, the maker of P-3 radar planes used to track drug smugglers, and a company that had been lobbying hard for more money for drug interdiction efforts, was actually all about that "serious study" and it was Mellman who "insisted" on asking voters about coughing up $2 billion for planes, lest their support for interdiction evaporate upon seeing the ten-figure price tag.
But earlier in his piece, Mellman says that he was "personally chagrined" that people favored interdiction efforts over policies that favored treatment. So since he personally favored treatment why did he "fear" that voters might turn off to interdiction (cutting off supply) when they discovered that it is a far, far less cost-effective approach than treatment (lowering demand)? Did someone say "schizophrenic"? Or would it be fair to suggest that he "feared" his deep-pocketed client might not like getting such a response?
Towards the end of his piece, Mellman delivers what he thinks is his "Gotcha!" knockout punch, claiming "the airplanes weren't for Colombia" at all. "They were for the U.S. -- a fact clearly stated in the question... And what of the tie between the poll and the lurid tale of billions for drug wars in Colombia's jungles? Oops. There was none. The poll was all about U.S. interdiction efforts."
Really? Let's review the finding of Mellman's study: 56 percent of his polling sample would support $2 billion being spent on "tracking planes to be flown in drug-producing areas." [emphasis mine]. "Drug-producing areas." Where exactly were the "drug producing areas" in America the tracking planes were to be flown in, Mark -- Nebraska and Wyoming?
And I was not the only one who made the Colombia connection. Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and Gregory Vistica (along with Steven Ambrus in Bogota), who first uncovered that Mellman's drug poll had been commissioned by Lockheed Martin, connected the same dots, reporting that the Lockheed-funded poll "prodded Clinton into action" on his Colombian drug war aid package, after Mellman warned that drugs were "an Achilles heel" for Democrats in the upcoming election. Oops.
Mellman wraps up his piece with this zippy zinger: "I don't expect a correction from Arianna, though. As we've learned in our word-of-mouth studies, exciting stories are much more fun than simple truths."
Especially when the "exciting stories" are spun by someone trying to rewrite history -- and the "simple truths" are both embarrassing and a tad sleazy, and leave one feeling more than a little personally chagrined.
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http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/
To them, an argument presented in the language of reasonableness, with abundant use of such phrases as "of course," "naturally," "no matter how you look at it," and "the opposite is true," trump any amount of mere logic and sense.
They themselves think that reality is negotiable, depending on the amount of conviction one brings to the exercise. The way to win, in their minds, is just to never believe you can lose. If you believe your own myth, how can you fail?
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shoot your tv.
My parents were alcoholics. My grandparents were alcoholics. I have seen what alcohol does to the people who are addicted to it.
An alcoholic is not any prettier than a meth addict or a heroin addict. They commit acts of violence. They abuse their children. They do all kinds of bad things.
But it seems like the innocent victims of alcoholics are second class citizens compared to the innocent victims of illegal drug users.
Why is there no campaign of armed vengeance against Pete Coors or against the people who make $2.99 vodka?
We're tearing up the Constitution, poisoning the environment, engaging in mass incarceration, and arming our society to the teeth to stop one form of addiction.
That doesn't stop addiction.
Would the world really be better off if all the cocaine addicts switched to vodka and Red Bull instead?
Ask the child of any alcoholic about that one.
with kids who smoke pot....I say" thank God"...I have to lecture my grown, well grounded, pot smoking kids not to eat too many Cheeto's...
If i was smoking pot through my red wine years......ahhh the desicions I would have made.....differently...
Hey ...spend money on feeding the people, giving them hope and jobs...and a future...then crack and meth and cocaine......is not the only way out...
You are doing this nation a great service.
seriously considered decriminalization... they were, even back then, planning yet another
rip-off of Gov't funds disguised as "interdiction".
I wonder just HOW MUCH cash has been wasted by the "fun-is-evil" crowd since
Harry Anslinger!!!
And of course..... perscription drugs are now the DRUGS OF CHOICE for high-schoolers... THIS from
recent Federal stats!
All because of the Puritan mind-set.
Those evil plants growing in the ground are evil because poor people and mexicans find relief and joy through an occasional toke. Not like God put them there or anything.
And that dime bag you bought to make reality seem a little more palatable contributes to terrorism...thats right, Taaarrrism. That thing Muslims do by blowing up bombs that make good Americans french-speaking queers lining up for abortions and throwing away their bibles and morals....
had enough of the reefer madness?
Well, lets all do something about it..
Ring, ring, ring
"Hello?"
"Excuse me sir, but are you a member of the Republican party working for Lockheed-Martin?"
"Er...why, no I'm not"
Click
And when are the self proclaimed Experts like Mellman who design "serious studies on underexplored issues" ever going to get over supply side interventions. Let's recap: they work in the "drug wars?" NO. But that's because the drug wars provide the CIA with the majority of its "black" operating budget. They work on our "Immigration Problem?" NO But that's because NAFTA destroyed agriculture in south and central America and coming here is the only way desperate people can feed their families. They work in our "Energy Crisis?" HELL NO. Al Gore said it best on TED, "Junkies find veins in their toes .... when they run out of larger veins elsewhere in their bodies. And so now we're looking at shale and conducting endless Imperial Adventures. And they work in our present overall "Economic Crisis?" GOOD GOD, NO. But let's bail out financial speculators anyways - they're too big and too important for us to let them fail.
So maybe we could try a quick peek at Demand in a few of these areas and see what happens? And in the process, take care of the real victims and not the perpetrators.
War on drugs!
War on terrorism!
War on poverty!
War on crime!
These misnomers are all designed to scare the American people and give the impression that we need 'protection' from these 'evils'!
Wake up folks! The politicians are running a protection racket!!
War on this, War on that! Lies, Lies and more Lies. We have a President of the United State of America who is a WAR CRIMINAL! wHY DON;T wE tALK aBOUT that!!!!!