This Hillary Poll will be quietly buried, natch

Drudge gives the heads up on it and it’s a good thing because even Googling the story doesn’t make it easy to find:

CNNGALLUP SHOCK POLL: ONLY 16% FIRM ON HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT
Wed Jan 25 2006 10:50:26 ET

Most voters now say there’s no way they’d vote for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton if she runs for president in 2008 – while just 16 percent are firmly in her camp, a stunning new poll shows.

CNN -GALLUP found that 51 percent say they definitely won’t vote for Clinton (D-N.Y.) in 2008, another 32 percent might consider it, and only 16 percent vow to back her. That means committed anti-Hillary voters outnumber pro-Hillary voters by 3-1. The poll suggests she can forget about crossover votes – 90 percent of Republicans and 75 percent of conservatives say there’s no way they’d back her.

Meanwhile, 46% said they would oppose Secretary of State Rice if she ran for President – a step Rice has repeatedly said she won’t take.

That’s pretty interesting, isn’t it, when you consider that the press has all but claimed the Oval Office for Hillary in 2008. Seems like under those circumstances – such startling numbers on so very famous and controversial a woman – the story would be all over the place, doesn’t it?

Good luck finding anything being written on it. There is nothing about it on Gallup’s home page.

In fact, the only site I can find – at this point – reporting on the poll is here at Polling Report, and even then, it’s kept short and sweet.

A Google search brings up nothing on it, but does turn up two reports from CNN, one in December of ’05 and on in May of ’05. Now, what is interesting is that in both of the CNN pieces, the focus is immediately on Hillary Clinton and the chances for the White House…so this MUST be a subject that the press finds interesting and newsworthy.

And yet…so far…no coverage of these poll numbers. Interesting. If you go to Yahoo news, it’s the same thing. Oh, they have a headline about Hillary blasting the president (what’s new?) on “illegal eavesdropping” and the press is obediently covering her intellectually dishonest (and rather hypocritical, considering her often “far-fetched” explanations of missing documents and cattle-future profits, but I digress) remarks.

But nowhere are these poll numbers mentioned. Not even in passing. Not even buried at the end of the coverage of her “blasting” of Bush.

You just know if the numbers showed that 51% said they would “definately” vote for Hillary, it would be the lead story, everywhere.

Instead – the “damage control” speech will be played up, especially since it serves the dual purpose of promoting Hillary and casting doubt upon the President.

I know I’m not the only one who is just totally sick of how overt the press is in their unquestioning and starry-eyed adulation of this woman. I’m not the only one who believes it is rather dangerous for the press to be so deeply committed to a politician – any politician – that they are incapable of reporting negatively on her, or asking her a difficult question. A press that has so given itself over to anyone as to be rendered impotent in his or her presence, useless except as a delivery system, is a press that can do greivous harm to the nation. It is the sort of press only a tyrant could love.

As poisoned as the press is against President Bush, as unfair and disgracefully disrespectful as they are to him, I would much rather see them behave that way – with cynicism and distrust and even hatred, if they must hate – because at least one can read beyond the hate and spin, still get a sense of what is going on, even if they are hiding good news, or downplaying it. A press of slobbering and slavish devotion is one that will hide the bad news, and that is much, much worse.

Pravda, I am sure, would have hidden bad numbers re the Kremlin, had anyone dared to opine against it. I am ashamed, once again, of the press.

UPDATE: Days later, you still can’t find this story on the search engines.

UPDATE: IBD has a hard-hitting piece and a graph of the poll. The NY Sun suggests Democrats are worried about a Hillary candidacy for several reasons.

Gateway Pundit looks at Hillary’s shock and revulsion at what she calls President Bush’s “far-fetched” responses.