Fox cites unreliable text poll declaring Palin winner, ignores real polls Nick Juliano and David Edwards

Published: Friday October 3, 2008





Print This Email This 'Bigger flag pin' also meant Palin won, Doocy says The perky conservatives at Fox & Friends had a challenge before them Friday morning. While Sarah Palin bested the abysmally low expectations that preceded her vice presidential debate performance, 'good enough' just wasn't a good enough spin for Steve Doocy and his crew.



Where to turn for some positive spin on Palin's merely adequate 90-minutes on stage? Why, to Fox's own conservative audience, of course.



"There was a text poll that Fox News ran while you were watching you could actually text and let us know who won," Doocy declared. "Overwhelmingly by a margin of 87 to 11, you thought that Sarah Palin was the big winner."



Hooray! Happy days are here again. Doocy just knew that Palin could recover from a disastrous week of media appearances if only all the good boys and girls in the audience just believed real hard and clapped their hands -- or in this case, worked their thumbs. (Call it the Tinkerbell strategy.)



The hosts continued their hagiography of Palin's valiant victory for several more minutes -- all the while ignoring various legitimately scientific polls which showed Biden as the winner. Even Fox's unscientific online poll found Biden was the winner as of midday Friday. And in touting the text-message poll, the Fox hosts relied on a format one of their network's stars dismissed just last year after a similar poll declared Ron Paul the winner of a GOP primary debate.



Oh well. It wasn't long before they moved on to an even more irrelevant metric for deciding victory.



"There is a clear winner this morning. ... Examine the flag pins," Doocy said. "Joe Biden had a flag pin, Palin had a flag pin. ... Her's is about three times the size of his, so I would say flag pin-wise, she is the hands down winner."



Co-host Gretchen Carlson chimed in to remind everyone that "she's got a few more jewels on hers," drawing an especially lecherous-sounding reply from Doocy.



"Yes she does," he said, his tone of voice raising the question of just how much time he spent Thursday night leering at Palin's lapel.



This video is from Fox's Fox & Friends, broadcast October 3, 2008.









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