If the Left is going to hold an impeachment inquiry without first asking members of Congress to vote on it first as they’re supposed to, then why not use a dodgy poll to push impeachment on the public, too?

USA TODAY’s Susan Page, along with most of the chattering class, is all a-twitter today over a new USA TODAY/Ipsos poll showing that a plurality of Americans (45%-38%) now support impeaching President Trump over l’Affair Ukraine. Even more breathlessly, Page reports that a nearly identical percentage of Americans would (44%-35%) support the Senate voting to remove Trump from office.

So it’s all over for Trump now, right? He’ll be packing up his things any minute now while the Impeachment Gnomes put the finishing touches on their sinister plan.

To read USA TODAY report it, the poll “underscores the perilous situation the president finds himself in” after Trump “pressured the leader of Ukraine to investigate a political rival, then tried to hide the account of their phone conversation.”

Except there was no pressure, the investigation was n ongoing DOJ effort to look into foreign meddling, and Trump released a complete transcript of the call. Can’t Page get anything right? I’d add that when someone is pushing a false narrative that hard on the pages of a major newspaper, it’s no surprise that they can find a plurality of Americans who agree with it.

I’d have to add one more thing: The poll is absolute garbage.

Ipsos conducted a two-day survey, by their own admission, from “a sample of roughly 1,006 adults” who were “randomly drawn from Ipsos’ online panel,” plus “partner online panel sources, and ‘river’ sampling.” This doesn’t look like the world’s most reliable statistical universe.

First off, that’s a small number for such a big issue. Secondly, Ipsos didn’t limit their polling, as one likes to do on weighty matters, to likely voters who actually determine elections. Ipsos didn’t even limit their polling to registered voters. For all we know, the poll wasn’t even limited to citizens — Ipsos says only that they polled “adults.”

I just conducted a poll of my three dogs, and they’re in favor of whatever is popular at the moment, hopefully second breakfast. If I pushed impeachment at them, they’d probably agree if there were treats involved.

So my suggestion to worried readers would be to put this morning’s USA TODAY in the circular file where it belongs, and go enjoy a cocktail over a leisurely lunch.

Because that’s exactly what I’m going to do.