Not surprisingly, misleading poll questions only really get any attention when they target Democrats, but let's not quibble too much about how a we get to the problem and just be glad we're discussing it at all.

The poll Fitton commissioned, actually five questions added to a nationwide poll by Zogby International, was rather loaded in its language. "Some people believe that the Bill Clinton administration was corrupt," one question begins. In another question about Hillary Clinton, every answer included the word "corrupt," and the question was not asked about other candidates so that a comparison could be made.

The pollster, John Zogby, defended the questions as "balanced" -- a label Fitton made no attempt to earn. As he presented the results yesterday, he announced that Bill Clinton's financial conflicts of interest "make the issues of Halliburton and Dick Cheney . . . pale in comparison."

Pollster.com reliably amplified these objections and made some interesting points in the process.

But this episode also raises a second issue. How effective were these leading questions in producing the desired response? Put another way, did Judicial Watch get their money's worth?

Putting aside the obvious - that a 53% majority is not concerned about corruption in a Hillary Clinton White House - consider how the Zogby results compare to a set of balanced (though somewhat dated) questions about honesty and trust (via Polling Report):

ABC News/Washington Post (May 11-15, 2006. n=1,103 adults) - Please tell me if the following statements apply to Hillary Clinton or not... She is honest and trustworthy

52% applies
42% does not apply
6% unsure

CNN/USA Today/Gallup (Aug. 5-7, 2005. n=1,004 adults) Thinking about the following characteristics and qualities, please say whether you think each applies or doesn't apply to Hillary Clinton. How about...Is honest and trustworthy?

53% applies
43% does not apply
4% unsure

So a year (or more) ago, roughly the same percentage of Americans considered Hillary Clinton "honest and trustworthy" as expressed little or no concern about Clinton corruption in the Zogby/Judicial Watch survey. While the comparison is obviously imperfect, the lesson here may be that well developed opinions tend to be more resistant to manipulation by leading questions. If you are convinced that Hillary Clinton is honest (or dishonest), the leading language is unlikely to alter your answer either way.

There is another lesson here--whether the vote is held today, next year or in 2008, the way people feel about Hillary Clinton is cast in stone. As hard as Judicial Watch and Zogby tried to drive up Clinton's negatives, it will be just as hard, if not harder to drive up her positives.

A recent Harris interactive poll discovered that fully 48% of voting-age Americans would NOT vote for Hillary Clinton, including 20% of Democrats.

Fifty-six percent of men said that they would not vote for Clinton, while 45 percent of women said that she would not be their pick. In addition, 69 percent of those 62 and older said that they would not vote for Clinton.

Nearly half of the respondents said that they dislike Clinton’s political opinions and Clinton as a person. Fifty-two percent of people also said that “she does not appear to connect with people on a personal level.”

With numbers like this, Judicial Watch hardly needed to push the poll their way with loaded language.