This is why I don't buy the polls that Pelosi's popular

When liberals come to this blog bragging about the fact that Pelosi is more popular than Bush, I laugh because I know that a majority of those polled haven't a clue who Pelosi is. I think Jonah Goldberg's column really nails the problem with the polls:

HUGE NUMBERS of Americans don't know jack about their government or politics. According to a Pew Research Center survey released last week, 31% of Americans don't know who the vice president is, fewer than half are aware that Nancy Pelosi is the speaker of the House, a mere 29% can identify "Scooter" Libby as the convicted former chief of staff of the vice president, and only 15% can name Harry Reid when asked who is the Senate majority leader.

Also last week, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that two-thirds of Americans believe that Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales' firing of eight U.S. attorneys was "politically motivated."

So, we are supposed to believe that two-thirds of Americans have studied the details of the U.S. attorney firings and come to an informed conclusion that they were politically motivated — even when Senate Democrats agree that there is no actual evidence that Gonzales did anything improper. Are these the same people who couldn't pick Pelosi out of a lineup? Or the 85% who couldn't name the Senate majority leader? Are we to imagine that the 31% of the electorate who still — after seven years of headlines and demonization — can't identify the vice president of the United States nonetheless have a studied opinion on the firing of New Mexico U.S. Atty. David Iglesias?

Oh, before we proceed, let me make clear: This isn't a column defending Gonzales. This administration should have long ago sent him out of the bunker for a coffee-and-doughnut run and then changed the locks. No, this is a column about how confused and at times idiotic the United States is about polls, public opinion and, well, democracy itself. We all love to tout the glories of democracy and denounce politicians who just follow the polls. Well, guess which politicians follow the polls? The popular ones, that's who. And guess why: Because the popular ones get elected. Bucking public opinion is the quickest way for a politician to expedite his or her transition to the private sector.

[...]

Citing polls as proof you're on the right side of an argument is often a symptom of intellectual cowardice. If the crowd says 2+2=7, that's no reason to invoke the authority of the crowd. But pundits and pols know that if they align themselves with the latest Gallup findings, they don't have to defend their position on the merits because "the people" are always right. Such is the seductiveness of populism. It means never being wrong. "The people of Nebraska are for free silver, and I am for free silver," proclaimed William Jennings Bryan. "I will look up the arguments later."

I agree with the last part completely and it's why I could care less what the polls say about the war. We need to fight this war and the American public doesn't understand why but there are very good reasons. Letting the uninformed by our decision makers is very bad policy.

And this is spot on:

The days when politicians would actually defend small-r republicanism are gone. The answer to every problem in our democracy seems to be more democracy, as if any alternative spells more tyranny.

So many of the arguments against Bush's handling of the war is that he's being a tyrant just because he is doing his job. He isn't listening to the American people. He should listen to Congress more. But he's not being a tyrant, he's being our representative, he's doing the job we elected him to do. He already listened to the American people when they elected him in 2004. He now has to lead as he promised he would. It's not tyranny but representative government.