The Questions That
Are NOT Asked Also Affect Public Opinion
Or do polling companies have some agenda on the issue? Framing a neutral polling question poses a serious challenge. And in any event, why ask questions about a subject the government would just as soon as few people thought about as possible?
If people did think about Bradley Manning and what he's done, there's always the possibility that, like readers of the Guardian in the U.K. in 2011, they might vote for him to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for exposing American war crimes and slowing American wars, at least in the Middle East. Manning got 39.4% of that vote, followed by Julian Assange of Wikileaks with 18.9%, and Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (Burma) with 11.3%, the peace activist who won the prize in 1991.
Roots Action has a current online petition to award the peace prize to Manning. With a goal of 75,000 signatures, the petition had 59,595 signers by June 5.
Presumably the U.S. government prosecuting Manning wants to do what it can from
becoming a popular hero or noble martyr -- someone others might emulate. His treatment since May 2010 is consistent with a determined effort to diminish or break him, holding him in isolation in conditions that were "cruel, inhuman, and degrading" according to a United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture.
What Did the People Know, and When Did They Know It?
Maybe a polling question could be: Do you believe it's constitutional for the U.S. Army to torture one of its own soldiers because he revealed the truth about U.S. war crimes to the American people?
Like the void in polling, mainstream media coverage has been thin and frequently counter-factual to the point of resembling government propaganda. For example, anchor Brian Williams framed the story this way on the NBC Nightly News on June 3:
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