Michael Medved seems pretty excited about the results of a Gallup poll that had Jews coming out as the religion with the most positive reaction among the general public.

It’s perhaps not surprising to see Jews rated higher than much-publicized, controversial groups like Scientologists, Atheists or Muslims, but the Gallup Poll (of 1,001 adults) also found Jews scoring higher than Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, “Evangelical Christians” or “Fundamentalist Christians.” In other words, more Americans declared favorable reaction to the tiny Jewish community (just 2% of the national population) than to vastly more substantial groups in the society, and fewer expressed negativity at any level of intensity. Only 1% of respondents expressed “very negative” views of Jews, while 11% declared a “very negative” attitude toward “Fundamentalist Christians.”

No so fast Michael.

You may want to read Dr. Stephen D. Levitt's paper, "Testing theories of discrimination: Evidence from Weakest Link", published in the Journal of Law and Economics, 2004. From the conclusion:

Using the unique institutional setup of Weakest Link, this paper tests for the presence and type of discrimination. Perhaps surprisingly, no evidence of discrimination toward blacks or women is found, whereas there are substantively large magnitudes of observed discrimination toward Hispanics and the elderly. The data are consistent with statistical discrimination toward Hispanics and taste-based discrimination toward the elderly. There is also evidence that women tend to vote more frequently for men and vice versa. It is important to emphasize, however, that strategic concerns, rather than characteristics such as race, gender, and age, appear to be the primary determinants of voting behavior.

[*451] Given the highly stylized nature of the interactions on this television show, one must use extraordinary caution in trying to draw general conclusions from these results. Indeed, one could imagine that the absence of observed discrimination toward blacks in this artificial context might arise precisely because of the presence of real-world discrimination toward blacks, which has sensitized Americans to the importance of not appearing outwardly racist, regardless of inward beliefs. At some conscious or unconscious level, contestants may shy away from targeting blacks on a nationally televised program. In contrast, players may be less concerned about appearing to target Hispanics and the elderly. Ideally, one would like to isolate real-world settings in which the strategic incentives flip as they do on Weakest Link to provide a more readily generalizable test of competing theories of discrimination.

Mel Gibson denied being anti-semitic on several occasions while promoting Passion of the Christ, and yet revealed virulent anti-semitism when his social inhibitions were lowered by a series of margueritas.

That's a whole lot of support for something we all know--people don't always say what they really think.

Considering the recent war in Lebanon and Mel Gibson's travails, the public is more sensitized to a politically-correct expression of their feelings on Jews. Conversely, the recent publicity concerned the capture of fugitive polygamist Warren Jeffs, and the confusion between the mainstream Mormon church and Jeff's polygamous sect, enhanced the negative perception of Mormons. Liberals of course have made it fashionable to express bigoted feelings about Evangelicals

Anti-semitism hasn't disappeared by any means, its just gone underground.

Its been thirty years, but I'll never forget being at my girlfriend's home and hearing her sweet mother, the wife of a retired Anglican priest, explain that she didn't shop at a certain grocery store because it was owned by Jews. I learned in that moment that bigots don't necessarily look like hillbillies.