LETTERS: POLL RESULTS RAISE QUESTIONS

To the editor:

In a poll supposedly taken recently, the results allegedly gave President Clinton a 60 percent approval rating. This indicates that 60 percent of the American people are stupid. I don't buy this for a minute. There is another probability in this propaganda attempt. The news item I say didn't mention the name of the pollster. I wonder why. In fact, the public doesn't even know if a poll was actually taken. Another question: If a poll really was taken, was it rigged? I read several years ago where a poll concerning a labor-union issue was conducted outside a manufacturing plant at the time of a shift change. Is this rigging a poll or what? This poll about Clinton's approval rating, if actually taken, could have been taken at a gay convention. That would certainly be rigging the results in his favor.

In an era where payoffs, kickbacks, bribery, deceit, thievery, buying of elections and even indifference to murder are the norm rather than an exception, I would think it would be to our advantage to be a little more cynical rather than so gullible. Rigging or inventing a mythical poll to influence public opinion would be far easier to achieve, I would think, than many of the other shady manipulations that being successfully achieved today.

RAY UMBDENSTOCK

Cape Girardeau