A couple of weeks ago I wrote that Megyn Kelly was arguably as bad as her Fox News colleague Glenn Beck. Today she added weight to that theory.

In a discussion with Stuart Varney, Kelly introduced the results of a Fox News Opinion Dynamics poll to argue that Democrats are defying the will of the people by advocating the expiration of Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy. Kelly displayed this graphic from the poll:

In her discussion with Varney, both of them asserted that these poll results revealed the public’s opposition to letting the the tax cuts expire. However, the poll actually says the exact opposite. While 44% did say to keep all the tax cuts, a plurality of respondents (50%) said to let them expire either entirely (14%) or at least for those earning more than $250,000 (36%). So, contrary to Kelly’s distortion of the facts, respondents actually favor taxing the rich more by a 6 point margin.

Kelly was forced to mischaracterize the results of this poll even though Fox News made a valiant effort to skew the poll in order to return numbers that favored her bias. The question asked (pdf) by the pollsters inquired as to whether the respondent would…

1. Continue the tax cuts for everyone.

2. Continue the tax cuts for everyone except families earning more than $250,000 dollars a year.

3. Allow the tax cuts to expire and let taxes go back up to their previous level.

The first problem with this construction is that it divides, and thus dilutes, the responses of those favoring expiration of the tax cuts. But more egregious is the phrasing. The first two choices offer options to “continue the tax cuts.” The third option inexplicably changes to allowing the tax cuts “to expire” and prejudicially adds “let taxes go back up.” A fair and balanced poll would have maintained a consistent tone and left out the commentary.

Of course, we know that Fox News has never really been interested in fairness or balance. But no matter how often I see it, it is still astonishing to watch these propagandists assert conclusions that are diametrically opposed to reality, even when the truth is right there on their own screen.