The Washington Post announced bad news for its largely liberal readers in its poll Tuesday morning. The headline said "6 in 10 Americans lack faith in Obama: Congress still held in lower esteem, but poll shows gap narrowing." Those who read the story would wait until the end of paragraph six (just before the jump) to get this liberal-haunting number: "Those most likely to vote in the midterms prefer the GOP over continued Democratic rule by a sizable margin of 56 percent to 41 percent."

But if the Post reader skipped the gray text and went just for the graphics, they’d get the impression that Republicans are worse off than the Democrats: they’d see asked "how much confidence do you have" in the parties, they showed Obama’s "lack faith" number at 58 percent, Democrats in Congress at 68 percent, and Republicans at 72 percent.

But wait: in parentheses it says "percent of voters saying 'just some' or 'none'". (That wasn't bolded in the paper, as it is on the website.) Here’s the rub: deep in the Post's data (question 3), it shows Republicans "just some" number was 43 percent and "none" was 29 percent, while Democrats "just some" number was 35 percent and "none" was 32 percent. So portraying the Republican standing as "worse" than the Democrats (complete with trouble-red emphasis) is misleading at best.

Eight weeks ago, The Washington Post topped its own front-page with its own ABC-Washington Post poll announcing that the public strongly favored a "public option" in health care, by 57 to 40 percent. Their latest poll is much worse: "Negatives abound in poll," read the subhead. So it was buried on page 6 Wednesday.

The Washington Post touted a new poll on Tuesday that popular support is increasing for a government-run "public option" health care system – just as liberal Democrats try to push that into the Senate Finance Committee bill. The headline was "Public option gains support: Clear majority now backs plan." So it’s not surprising, as Ed Morrissey found at Hot Air, that the Post is stuffing its poll sample with a few extra Democrats:

The sampling comprises 33% Democrats, as opposed to only 20% Republicans. That thirteen-point spread is two points larger than their September polling, at 32%/21%. More tellingly, it’s significantly larger than their Election Day sample, which included 35% Democrats to 26% Republicans for a gap of nine points, about a third smaller than the gap in this poll. Of course, that’s when they were more concerned about accuracy over political points of view.

The Post’s poll (illustrated by a chart) found respondents favored a public option "to compete with" private insurance by a margin of 57 to 40 percent. But even with the polling sample tilted toward the Democrats, some less favorable findings weren’t in the headline, as Dan Balz and Jon Cohen reported:

On the occasion of President Obama reversing course on plans to release photographs "depicting the abuse of detainees," a decision wildly unpopular on the hard left, The Washington Post's lead story Thursday was "As Cheney Seizes Spotlight, Many Republicans Wince." There's only one obvious problem with Dan Balz's front-pager. Those "many Republicans" are too timid to attach their names to all the wincing.

Employing the usual liberal assumption that Republicans are always nastier at attack politics, CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer suggested on Sunday morning that Barack Obama has yet to "go negative" in this campaign and "some" say he needs to "climb off the mountaintop and get down here and mix it up."

Did he miss all Obama's talk of Bush-induced "economic disaster" on Saturday? But then Schieffer suggested that Joe Biden's going to have to be Obama's spear chucker – well, "spear guy" – and he might not be able to attack McCain since "they are such close friends."

Did he not hear the "seven kitchen tables" crack in Springfield on Saturday? This talk about timid Democrats came after Schieffer asked his Democrat guests to unload on the controversy over McCain's multiple houses.