Americans support the Republican invitation for Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before Congress without consulting the White House. According to the pollster that said Eric Cantor would easily win his primary.
According to CNN/ORC, a generally respected pollster,
63 percent of Americans disapprove of Republican congressional leaders having invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before Congress without consulting or informing President Obama. But hold the presses, scratch that, we have Very Important New Information. Turns out,
59 percent of Americans support Netanyahu's speech—if you listen to one of the worst pollsters in the business.
How bad? Remember how then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was completely blindsided by a primary loss last summer? McLaughlin & Associates, the internal pollster that assured him he had that primary well under control and did not need to worry is the pollster now assuring us that Americans are warmly supportive of the Netanyahu speech. The blown Cantor polling wasn't a one-time mistake, either. McLaughlin has a long record of failure.
Even if you believe that the Netanyahu poll is the rare case where McLaughlin got the numbers right, there's another problem with the poll: McLaughlin put its thumb on the scale when it came up with the question it would ask. Here's CNN's question:
Do you think Congressional leaders did the right thing or the wrong thing by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress without first notifying the president that they would do so?
Here's
McLaughlin's question:
“Republican House Speaker John Boehner has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress on March 3rd. President Obama and some Democrats think it should be cancelled because it is 2 weeks before an Israeli election. Israeli Prime Minister wants to speak to the American Congress to try to stop a deal that would give Iran a nuclear weapon. These negotiations are set to conclude 3 weeks after the Prime Minister’s speech. Knowing all of this is true, do you support or oppose Prime Minister Netanyahu speaking to Congress on March 3rd?
"Israeli Prime Minister wants to speak to the American Congress to try to stop a deal that would give Iran a nuclear weapon." Given that lunatic wording, the only real surprise is that McLaughlin managed to come up with a number as low as 59 percent support for Netanyahu's speech.
Politico, by the way, reported this as if it was a serious poll.