This is probably a case where blogging formatting and practices is not best for the discussion. I led with the Hewitt interview because that's where the trail started rather than the Blumenthal stuff and the good cites (esp. Mooney) Hewitt provides.

Hewitt gets around the point that Blumenthal makes both much better and in a more balanced way: That Zogby's poll on military attitudes employed methodologies that aren't legit.

The Mooney article--complaining that Zogby is a whore who lets right wing groups buy his reputation, ironically enough--explains that in some good detail as well.

here's Hugh Hewitt doing his usual ambush interview schtick in an interview with Zogby on Thursday:

HH: [After lengthy hectoring about the poll's methodology, which Zogby had already said he would only discuss off the record for security reasons.] Why were no demographics released?

JZ: All the demographics were indeed released, Hugh.

....HH: John, I've got your entire thing here. You have not released the demographics.

JZ: You are clearly uninformed.

HH: You have not released the demographics.

JZ: (click)

HH: You have not...he hung up. He hung up. That's John Zogby, not a pollster.

Guess what? Zogby had indeed released the demographics. Here is Hugh's excuse for not knowing this:

In fairness, his office had sent the demographics info (which had not been released yesterday and still isn't on the web) but did so in a PDF file that we were only able to read after downloading a new version of Adobe. When we were talking, we didn't have the demographics. Had Zogby simply told me the demographics were now out after previously being withheld, that would have been fine.

Could Hugh possibly be any more pathetic? Zogby did send a copy of the demographics directly to Hugh's office but had the gall to do so in the latest version of Adobe. Hugh's crack staff was apparently stymied by this, and Hugh thinks that Zogby should have performed some mind reading to figure this out. Telling him that "all the demographics were indeed released" wasn't enough. Instead, he should have told Hugh that "the demographics were now out after previously being withheld." Right.

The entire right wing choir, of course, is now crowing about how Zogby was too gutless to answer Hugh's questions and hung up on him.

Present company included?

N.b. that Drum remains agnostic on the merits of Zogby's poll. But unfortunately for me, I let my axiomatic contempt for Hewitt be outweighed by my respect for OTB's take on events. Oops.

Also, last time I checked, Adobe was free, & it was pretty much impossible to get through 24 hours without being invited to download same.

That said, I've seen interviews with troops where they expressed just that view. Statistically meaningless, but enough to make me wish for a decent poll.