'To ask the question is to answer it'

At National Review, Rich Lowry is grumpy:
Over at PowerLine, John Hinderaker makes a great catch: CNN describes the Arizona immigration law as "polarizing." John asks why the health-care bill was never described that way, even though it too brought protestors into the streets and was actually, in contrast to the Arizona bill, opposed by most people? To ask the question is to answer it.
I sent Mr. Lowry a note:

A Google search for "health care bill polarizing" gets 476,000 results.

A GoogleNews search for the same term gets more than 600 results.

You say that "to ask the question is to answer it," but trying to answer it might've provided you a different result.

Comments

KhabaLox said…
Hmm.... I only get 195k results from the first search.

But I'm not sure what point you're making. It seems like the much smaller result set from the News search reinforces Lowry's hypothesis, that the polarizing nature of the health care bill was underreported.
April 26, 2010 at 12:36 PM
Joel said…
I can't explain the disparity in search results, K.

But: The smaller set from the news search reflects the fact that GoogleNews is only giving you the last couple of weeks of results for the phrase, used at news sites. I'll venture. The bigger number reflects how the bill was characterized throughout the debate; the smaller number reflects afterglow coverage.

I think my point stands, in other words.
April 26, 2010 at 12:47 PM
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