That poll created by wingnut John Ziegler purporting to demonstrate that Obama voters were misinformed by the mainstream media about Barack Obama and Joe Biden (and defended so scatalogically by Ziegler) has been examined by objective polling experts beyond Nate Silver now, and the verdict is unanimous:

Wall Street Journal:

"..Interpreted the numbers from the survey in a misleading fashion."

Pollster.com:

The Zogby summary quotes Ziegler claiming that "the poll really proves beyond any doubt the stunning level of malpractice on the part of the media in not educating the Obama portion of the voting populace."

The problem, as Silver points out, is that the survey does no such thing. It proves only that Obama voters surveyed were less likely to attribute to Obama or Biden a half dozen statements that were "at best debatable, yet apparently represented as factual to the respondent" ...

... Describing his biased, leading questions as a legitimate test of knowledge is hugely misleading, at best.

Even John Zogby himself is running from this survey, claiming it was put together while he was on vacation. While paying lip service to its ostensible validity, he adds:

“I also believe it was not our finest hour. This slipped through the cracks. It came out critical only of Obama voters.”

Worth noting, however: Everyone seems in agreement that this was not a "push poll" in the strict sense of the term, but rather was in a similar vein of being a misleading survey deployed for partisan political purposes.

Ziegler himself has posted a rambling, incoherent defense that attempted to answer the chief issue -- the factual invalidity/dubiousness of many of his questions -- thus:

These questions were carefully chosen to try and identify which news stories broke through the clutter and reached the average Obama voter. Ironically, one of the main reasons that the questions enrage the left is that many of the questions were based on news stories that the left-wing media ignored. In other words, because the left-wing ignored the negative aspects of Obama's past, they weren't reported and therefore weren't significant (or didn't really happen)and so any mention of them is evidence of a right-wing agenda lacking in credibility. Holy circular argument Batman!!

Many left-wing blogs (and many of the thousands of e-mail I have recieved from their readers) are absolutely obsessed with trying to prove that the wording of certian questions was not 100% accurate, as if that would have made any difference at all except in the case of the question about Russia.

Actually, as we already pointed out, the questions were far from 100 percent accurate, and in many cases were nearly 100 percent inaccurate:

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Marcy Wheeler aka emptywheel has come up with a rather brilliant solution to seating Michigan's delegates at the Democratic convention.

She's now started a petition to ask Mark Brewer and Howard Dean to resolve this issue quickly.

My proposal is this: you seat the 83 delegates selected (plus alternates) on April 19 with full voting strength. That would net Hillary 11-16 delegates from having won the Clusterfuck in January. It would also ensure that the only reasonably democratic vote Michiganders got to cast this year--April 19's district caucuses--counts.

You treat the PLEOs (spots for locally elected officials) as is. This would net Hillary another 3 delegate advantage from the primary.

You split the At-Large delegates 50-50 (that is, 14 each). This would give Obama the opportunity to influence the selection of 14 of the delegates in Denver (his campaign did not vet any of the people who ran as uncommitted delegates on Saturday and at least some of the delegates selected are not solid Obama supporters). It would also partially incorporate Obama's demand that the delegation be split 50-50.

You do not seat the super-delegates, at least not as super-delegates. The campaigns are perfectly free to use their 14 At-Large delegate slots to give to the people who would otherwise be super-delegates, but they will be delegates just like any other.

This solution accomplishes everything everyone has said they want to do. It would give MI's voters--the people who will do the grunt work to get our Democratic nominee elected in the fall--a say at the Convention. It rewards Hillary, slightly, for having won the Clusterf**k. It penalizes Obama, slightly, for taking his name off the ballot in January. And it penalizes MI, 28 total delegates, for having broken DNC rules and moved its primary up.

But it focuses that punishment on those who played Chicken with the votes of MI and lost, last year, rather than punishing those who had no choice in the matter and lost their ability to cast a vote in a truly fair election. It penalizes the super-delegates, many of whom were instrumental in the decision to defy the DNC and many of whom are engaging in the worst posturing right now.

Please sign the petition asking Michigan's Democratic Party Chair, Mark Brewer, and DNC Chair, Howard Dean, to adopt this proposal.