If you have you ever wondered what Motivated Reasoning and Confirmation Bias looks like when spun by the experts of the right, well look no further, we have an excellent example of that stench wafting up from the cellars of the Daily Caller, then canned and marketed by the imminently ‘Fair and Balanced’ Fox News (We’re still waiting Fox).

There is no link to the actual emails so I’ll have to use the DC news article’s language as my evidence.

From the article at Daily Caller:

“Internal emails between senior officials at The Gallup Organization, obtained by The Daily Caller, show senior Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod attempting to subtly intimidate the respected polling firm when its numbers were unfavorable to the president.”

Surely Axelrod must have unethically forceful and insistent in his communications with Gallup for them to be afraid he was trying to influence the outcome of their polls. I can only imagine a series of heated emails and phone calls demanding Gallup change their methodology in order to skew the polls toward higher Obama’s popularity numbers when compared to Romney. A veiled threat maybe?

Here is the damning communication from Axelrod to Gallup:

Smart piece from Ron Brownstein on polling, demographics and why Gallup is saddled with some methodological problems.bit.ly/HQCMVk

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) April 17, 2012

Wait, what?

You mean the communication from Axelrod trying to force Gallup to change its poll numbers is a tiny little Tweet that referenced an article in National Journal which compared several poll results by a variety of companies? That’s as threatening as Axelrod gets? Weak.

But I guess that’s it. Here is more info from Daily Caller:

“In April, Axelrod tweeted that a poll showing Mitt Romney with a 48-43 percent lead over Obama was ‘saddled with some methodological problems,’ directing his Twitter followers to read a National Journal story criticizing Gallup polls showing a Romney lead.”

and:

“Internally, Gallup officials discussed via email how to respond Axelrod’s accusations. One suggested that it ‘seems like a pretty good time for a blog response,’ and named a potential writer.”

What was that Tweet again?

Smart piece from Ron Brownstein on polling, demographics and why Gallup is saddled with some methodological problems. bit.ly

Doesn’t sound like a threat to me.

Maybe the threat came later.

In response to that suggestion, another senior Gallup official wrote — in an email chain titled ‘Axelrod vs. Gallup’ — that the White House ‘has asked’ a senior Gallup staffer ‘to come over and explain our methodology too.’

That Gallup official, the email continued, ‘has a plan that includes blogging and telling WH [the White House] he would love to have them come over here etc. This could be a very good moment for us to [show] our super rigorous methods compared to weak samples etc.’

I’m sorry, was the invitation from the White House to Gallup or from Gallup to the White House? This is terribly unclear.

In a second email chain titled ‘slanderous link about Gallup methodology,’ another senior Gallup official noted that a Washington Examiner story on Axelrod’s anti-Gallup tweet was ‘on [the] Drudge [Report] right now,’ before writing that the episode was ‘[s]o politically motivated, it’s laughable.’

I guess having your tweet featured on the Drudge Report is the same as exerting pressure.

This is awful thin gruel even for Fox, but, when you’re trying to be unfair and unbalanced, nothing is too flaky, not even Daily Caller.