Doubt polls. Doubt them very much. We’ll be seeing a lot of them in the next few months. They are mostly evil.

During Dubya’s reign, countless half-wits declared him to be more “likeable” than his opponents. To maximize the damage, organizations lacking a sense of shame ran polls on this topic.

A recent Zogby/Williams Identity Poll … found that 57% of undecided voters would rather have a beer with Bush than Kerry. (In Bush’s case, it would be a nonalcoholic beer.) … A new Pew Research Center Poll asked swing voters who comes off more as a “real person,” Bush or Kerry? Bush won, 56% to 38%.

—Richard Benedetto, “Who’s more likeable, Bush or Kerry?”, USA Today, 9/17/2004

It might be true that most of those polled would have had a more pleasant chat with Bush than with Kerry. I don’t care, because this is obviously irrelevant to the question of who would have made a better president.

It’s even possible that Bush treats his immediate family and closest friends–even acquaintances, let’s say–with more kindness than does Kerry. I don’t know; but this, too, is irrelevant to the question of who would have made a better President.

Here’s a poll I would love to do.

“In your opinion, should the Zogby employee who proposed asking voters which presidential candidate they’d rather have a beer with, and the Pew staffer who decided to ask them which one comes off more as a ‘real person’, be shot?”