George,

Like a woman of 98 reading self-improvement books, some people are terminal optimists. Believing that public opinion surveys are always designed to measure public opinion also requires extended optimism.

It's no surprise to read that polls about health care reform reach opposite conclusions, depending on who pays the bill. Long gone are the naive days when pollsters strove only to improve the accuracy of their measurements. For at least a quarter century we have had a category of pollsters willing to contrive questions to produce desired results, and truth be damned.

How can we know which pollsters follow the honest road of George Gallup and can be relied upon to seek truth, and which follow the contrived world of JD Power and can be relied upon to dispel it?

I wish I knew.

Rey Barry (Electronic mail, August 15, 2009)