The Andean nation has had an unhappy recent history even by Latin American standards. A two decades long civil war between government forces and the Shining Path rebels left almost seventy thousand dead. The man who claims victory for the war, former President Alberto Fujimori, who served between 1990 and 2000, did not accomplish the feat with clean hands. He launched a “self-coup” in 1992, using the military to purge the national Congress and institutions hostile to him. Fujimori’s tenure was marked by corruption and state repression, and today he is serving a long prison sentence for his many human rights violations.

The post-Fujimori years have not been an era of national healing. In 2006, after a bitter election campaign, the former president Alan García narrowly defeated Ollanta Humala, a nationalist and ally of Hugo Chávez, to gain a second term in office. That García should have returned for another stay in the Casa de Pizarro seems to be almost a grand political joke, for as President from 1985-1990, his corrupt regime oversaw a massive increase in the national debt, poverty, and the devaluation of the currency by more than a million times. He too has been accused of gross abuses of human rights. In short, it was the uselessness of the García administration that created the conditions for the rise of Fujimori in the first place.

The García sequel is no better than the original. Last October, he accepted the resignation of his entire cabinet as a result of a corruption scandal. In June of this year, a government attempt to expropriate indigenous land in the Amazon for the purposes of oil exploration led to clashes that left more than fifty soldiers and civilians dead. Yet another prime minister resigned in the aftermath. And little has been done to end the malnutrition that strikes one in five Peruvian children.

As can be imagined, Alan García has the approval rating to match his dismal performance. In fact, the October poll conducted by Ipsos APOYO Opinión y Mercado for the leading daily El Comercio shows only 26% of Peruvians support the president. The firm, which laudably makes a great deal of information on the results available, openly admits that the survey was conducted only in urban areas. This of course means that the more than a quarter of the population that lives in rural areas must naturally be unrepresented in the poll.

In the 2006 election, García drew his decisive support from the Lima metropolitan area, gaining almost two-thirds of the vote there. He was heavily beaten in rural Peru, in some places losing to Humala by fifty or sixty points. This month, the poll for El Comercio shows that his approval in the capital has plummeted to just 34%. When we consider that the parts of the country that rejected him most resoundingly three years ago are precisely those left out of the poll, it would appear that to credit Garcia with 26% approval would in fact be significantly overstating his popularity. He is fortunate that the constitution spares him the humiliation of running in the next election.

Waiting in the wings is Ollanta Humala, who is looking forward to another try for the presidency in 2011. The former army officer, who came to national prominence after leading a military uprising against the Fujimori regime in 2000, has won the support of the indigenous poor with his Inca nationalism and plain talk (he recently called García and Fujimori “bastards” at a public meeting). With an increase in his percentage of the vote of only 3%, he will be Peru’s next president. But his radicalism terrifies Peru’s elite, which fears being drawn into the Bolivarian axis led by Venezuela.  And from the right the leading candidate is Keiko Fujimori, daughter of Alberto and former first lady, who campaigns on a platform of amnesty for her father and draws support from those who crave the firm leadership he offered.

When just last year only one in four Americans approved of George W. Bush, no one suggested that he might be toppled before his term expired. The U.S.’ strong traditions, institutions, and civil society prevented a collapse into ungovernability. In Peru, none of these things exist, and if Alan García’s administration survives until 2011, it will most likely because it is “the government that divides us least,” as another statesman said long ago. By 2011, at the latest, the presidency will be up for grabs, and Peru must find a new governing majority. This will not be an easy process.

The bloodthirsty pollster offered traditional responses to his (or her) question - yes, no, maybe, and also the deranged “if he cuts my health care.” More than seven hundred answers (90% no) were received before the panicked application developer deleted the poll. The Secret Service investigated.

Friedman, reminded of the political climate in Israel shortly before the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in in 1995, sets out a line that must not be crossed, “between criticizing the president and tacitly encouraging the unthinkable and the unforgivable.” Every decent person must agree with him - creating a climate of support for assassinations is surely unacceptable political discourse.

Unfortunately, a more honest political commentator would be forced to agree that “tacitly encouraging the unthinkable and the unforgivable” is official U.S. policy - as long as the target is some other country’s head of state. If just asking a question can encourage an action, then by that standard the U.S. government would be complicit in deaths of leaders as diverse as Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan, and Salvador Allende of Chile. Who can deny that the U.S. has sponsored attempts on the life of the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, or that it approved the execution of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein?

For many people, these policy decisions are proper and correct. On The 700 Club Pat Robertson, man of God, called for the murder of Hugo Chávez, and as recently as 2006 U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen advocated the assassination of Fidel Castro. The killing of foreign leaders labeled hostile to the national interest is an acceptable idea in the United States. So how can we be surprised when those who view President Obama as an enemy apply the same logic?

Enough history. Let us return to the question that prompted the article - “Should Obama be Assassinated?” As repugnant as it may be, where exactly is the harm in casting this question into the murky depths of the Internet? To begin with we can assume that some Americans absolutely agree with the proposition, just as the recent German election tells us that at least 1.5% of that country’s electorate are unreconstructed Nazis. The poll in question is insight into the psyche of the asker - no one is dumb enough to suggest that the poll is somehow representative of U.S. or global public opinion. Confronted with the lunatic fringe, we have three choices. The first two, morally and practically impossible, are ignoring them or eliminating them. We have no choice but to defeat them in the battle of ideas.

When Aaron Gibralter and I created the Urtak project, we did so because we believed that widespread participation in public opinion research is necessary if it is actually to reveal what people think and care about. People are invited to add their questions to already existing surveys or to create their own - giving a much broader range of insights onto a sample than ever before possible. In the first survey created with our technology someone asked a question that is on a lot of minds “Will Obama be assassinated?” Of the more than two hundred who have answered this question, 35% say yes. More information about the sample is available at urtak.com, but suffice to say that the prospect of violence against Obama is worrying a diverse group.

President Obama is in danger. The arrests of two different groups of racist plotters were reported in August and October of last year. According to one book, death threats against Obama are five times more numerous than they were against George W. Bush. And this before this summer’s explosion of hatred, Obama as the new Hitler, and a national ammunition shortage. We cannot pretend that armed and organized intolerance does not exist.

Friedman is pursuing the strategy of the ostrich - burying his head in the sand and hoping the danger goes away. While he admits that crazed attacks on Obama from the right are now being repeated in Congress and by the well-known bigot Lou Dobbs of CNN, he does not suggest any course of action. From his high position, the bully reserves his venom for a powerless child (since cleared by the Secret Service) on Facebook - “I hope they put the jerk in jail and throw away the key because this is exactly what was being done to Rabin,” he says.

Friedman laments that there is no longer a “we” in American politics. Even if there ever was a “we” in American politics, creating a new consensus cannot be done without crushing the political power of those who believe in an exclusionary white Christian America. The question for us: what do we do next?

Fortunately for Uribe, the Colombian media still support him the best way they can, by commissioning low quality polls on his popularity. Last month I wrote about the serious problems with polls by Invamer Gallup, but they are just one of many offenders. For example, a poll from March of this year by Datexco, another Colombian research firm drew conclusions about the nation based on a sample of just 350 people! And no pollster cares to find a way around the problem that they are uniformly excluding rural Colombians, as well as the 15% of city dwellers that Gallup admits do not own phones.

The Colombian people have been subjected to a media bombardment of flawed poll results about Uribe. Since 2008 polls attempting to determine support for a potential third term have been coming out at the rate of at least one every two months. This is particularly interesting because a second reelection for Uribe until last week was a hypothetical question. If we cast our minds back to 2008 or 2000 we will remember that even in the U.S., the birthplace of polling, the public did not constantly see polls asking them about whether they wanted a third Bush or Clinton term. Is there really such a public clamor for Uribe to stay, or is this more similar to the strong media support that helped Mike Bloomberg force through an amendment to New York City’s term limits law last year?

A September 10 article in El Tiempo, Colombia’s largest daily and a strong supporter of the Uribista line helps to shed some light. The headline states that according to Invamer Gallup, 64% of Colombians support another Uribe term, and 58% would vote in an eventual referendum. This raises the question: why would there be a difference of 6% between the percentage of the population that supports another term and those that would actually show up to vote? The reason is because the headline misinforms. According to the data gathered by this survey, 86% of those who would vote in a referendum would vote to allow a third term. This means that at best, only 50% of those surveyed would actually vote for Uribe in a referendum, far lower than the trumpeted 64%.

The article also quotes Jorge Londoño, the president of Invamer Gallup, affirming that in two months, Uribe’s approval rating has risen by 3% and his favorability has risen by 2%. Last week, I pointed out that results that fall within a poll’s margin of error are statistically insignificant. Due to ignorance of survey methods, it is a common media practice to note tiny changes in poll results as representing either a rise or fall in support for a given position. But Londoño, the president of Colombia’s prestige polling firm has no such excuse. He knows exactly what he is doing: misleading the Colombian people.

Álvaro Uribe has refused to give a straight answer as to whether he wants to run for the presidency in 2010. He has repeatedly stated that it would be “inconvenient to perpetuate the presidency. “He could have easily vetoed last week’s referendum bill, and ended all discussion, but he has chosen not to. Yesterday, El Tiempo reported that a private meeting took place between Uribe and four Uribista pre-candidates for 2010, three of who have already said they would step aside if he chose to run. He again refused to explicitly state his plans, but over the course of the three hour discussion he told them to be ready to defend the banners of his government.

The pious Uribe feels he has a moral obligation to defend his country from threats internal (FARC) and external (Venezuela, Ecuador). Where does he get the strength? El Tiempo has the answer: he feels “empowered by the high public support reflected in the polls.” If the Constitutional Court allows the reelection referendum to take place, it is quite possible that Colombia will experience four more years of Uribe’s firm hand. When Colombians look for someone to thank for their good fortune, they should not forget their friends at Invamer Gallup and Datexco.

First, these results are based on the responses of only five hundred people. The laws of probability dictate that whether you are surveying a small population or a large one, the sample size of the poll will be the main influence on its margin of error. Just because Israel’s population is much smaller than the U.S.’s does not mean that a sample of five hundred will be as accurate as the more common samples of one thousand respondents.

In the case of the two Smith Research polls, the margin of error is 4.5%. What this means is that the August poll is just as likely to have returned a result at any point in a 9% range as it was to have a result of 4% believing Obama to be pro-Israel. It was just as likely to have found that 1%, or 6%, or 0%, or 8% shared this view. The June result of 6% is well within the poll’s margin of error. This means that there is no statistical difference at all between the two polls, yet in the first sentence of the Post piece we read that “The number of Israelis who see US President Barack Obama’s policies as pro-Israel has fallen to four percent.” This is either an embarrassing lack of understanding of how polls work, or an attempt to manipulate the public.

These problems pale in comparison to a much larger flaw: the intentional creation of an unrepresentative poll. While the headline of the article “4% of Israeli Jews: Obama pro-Israel” notes that only the opinions of the Jewish citizens of the State of Israel were considered, its first sentence does not. Arab Israelis, who make up 20% of the population, have been erased. While their views are very likely to be different from those of their Jewish compatriots, it is mind boggling to pretend they do not exist. Imagine a U.S. poll which ignored African-Americans, because they vote Democratic, or a Canadian poll that didn’t survey French Canadians, because they are separatists. In the North American political culture, these would be correctly identified as racist ideas. That Arab Israelis can be so blithely left out of a mainstream survey is deeply troubling.

Even if we accept the results of the Post poll, we still have to wonder why Jewish Israelis have such a low opinion of Barack Obama’s policies. Obama has been a strong friend of Israel. He denounced Hamas and Hezbollah. He supported Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon, and last winter’s attack on Gaza. He has repeatedly insisted that Israel, which he calls “our strongest ally in the region,” must remain a Jewish state. His Israel policy differs from his predecessor’s only in that he has argued for a freeze on construction of new settlements in the West Bank. If Obama is demoralized about his tough summer at home, remembering that Israel has no electoral votes could do something to console him.

The New York Times reports claims that up to 3 million of the 17 million registered voters are fakes. The BBC has first-hand information that voter-registration cards are being openly bought and sold. And the International Crisis Group points out an incredible discrepancy in the province of Nuristan, where the number of registered voters is three times the estimated population. No one doubts that cheating is taking place, the only question is how much. In addition, Afghanistan has been devastated by 30 years of war, and large areas of the country remain outside the Kabul government’s reach.  The outcome of such a chaotic election in a divided country cannot possibly reflect the will of the Afghan people.

In the past few days, papers everywhere seem to have reached a consensus: Hamid Karzai, the incumbent president, is certain to win, but it is not clear whether he will get the 50% of the vote necessary to avoid a runoff against his likely opponent, Abdullah Abdullah. How do they know? The polls. But in a rigged election, no one should be surprised by corresponding efforts to manipulate public opinion.

Two polls have been published on the subject of the election in the last month, one conducted by Glevum Associates, and the other by the International Republican Institute (with the assistance of Lapis, Ltd. of Kabul and Williams & Associates of Salem, Massachusetts). The polls’ findings are based on sample sizes more than twice as large as usual, and were conducted using face-to-face interviews in the many languages of Afghanistan (Dari, Pashto, Uzbek, Hazaragi, Pashayi, Turkmen, Balochi, etc.).

Glevum and IRI both found that about two thirds of Afghans think the country is on the “right track.” Glevum found that 45% of decided voters would back Karzai. IRI put the figure at 44%. Interestingly, 92% of IRI’s respondents were confident the election would be free and fair, while about 80% of those polled by Glevum agreed that the election would be secure, inclusive, and representative. At first glance the methodology of the two polls seems robust and stated margins of error are very low - 1.64% in the case of Glevum and 2% for the humble IRI. For this reason, and also because there is no alternative source of opinion data, Glevum and IRI have received enormous publicity. No one, however, has commented on the curious fact that in the Glevum poll, stopping corruption is named as the most important issue for 57%, in stark contrast to the 4% who mention corruption as a problem in the IRI poll.

These polls deserve closer scrutiny. Survey research is based on the premise that the opinions of a random and representative sample can be extrapolated to those of a much larger population. Obtaining a random sample, while not without its challenges, is fairly simple.  It’s the representative part that is always more difficult. In U.S. polls, there is always an effort to make sure that a sample has a correct percentage of Hispanic-Americans, or college graduates, or women, according to established demographic data. In Afghanistan, there is no demographic data. The only census was conducted in 1979. No one is even sure how many people live in the country! And then we have to consider that the security problem means that the pollsters could never have covered the entire country anyway.

There are more problems for Glevum and IRI. In June of this year the respected Gallup organization conducted a poll which found that just 24% of Afghans were confident that the presidential election would be conducted in a fair and transparent manner. Even accounting for the error introduced by what Gallup calls “practical difficulties” conducting polls, it is impossible to reconcile their result with the astronomical scores generated by Glevum and IRI. Their claim that the margin of error in their polls is plus or minus 2% is an attempt to mislead the public.

To conduct a poll with in-person interviews and to survey samples of more than two thousand is a very expensive proposition. Only very rich organizations can afford research on that scale. In this case, the U.S. government is footing the bill. Glevum Associates is better known for providing services in Iraq and Afghanistan to the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System, a controversial program embedding social scientists with combat units. Glevum has no apparent track record in election polling.

Also financed by the American government, the International Republican Institute has been described as “a revolving door for lobbyists and out-of-power Republicans.” Together with their collaborator Williams & Associates, an obscure survey research firm, IRI produced a poll for the Afghan presidential election in 2004 that predicted Hamid Karzai would take 78% of the vote, a mere 23% more than he went on to win. In 2009, public dollars are once again backing this winning combination.

The world press has been relatively uncritical in accepting the findings of the Glevum and IRI polls. This is dangerous, because as in Georgia in 2003, Ukraine in 2004, and Kenya in 2007, perceptions of an election’s fairness often hinge on the degree to which independent polls and official results line up. The Economist goes so far as to make the assumption that Karzai’s big lead in the polls means that vote-rigging will not make a difference to the final result. If the result of the election is challenged, there is no doubt that the results of U.S.-financed polls will be a defense against rival claims.

Voter turnout is a the measure of legitimacy in any election. In 2004, 70% of voters participated in the first election since the fall of the Taliban regime. The stakes are high for Barack Obama. Tomorrow, if ordinary Afghans vote in large numbers, the new government will acquire much needed credibility. If they stay at home, he would do well to remember that a growing majority of Americans oppose his “war of necessity.” Either way, at least for one day, the U.S. government will have to listen to Afghanistan speak for itself.

The perception of such popularity is politically useful. The Economist notes that Uribe’s “overwhelming support” helped convince the Colombian Congress and courts that the Constitution should be changed to allow his first re-election in 2006, and he is counting on it to push through a further amendment that will let him run once more in 2010. Colombians, it seems, do not hold scandals against their leader. Not even offenses as egregious as the paramilitary ties of dozens of his parliamentary allies (including his cousin), or the systematic extrajudicial murder of civilians bogusly classified as subversives.  After all, as the New York Times editorialized last year, he is “The leader who brought Colombia back from the brink and onto a path toward peace.”

But if we look at the polls that rate Uribe so highly, grave questions must be asked about the reliability of the public opinion industry in Colombia. For a poll result to be accurate it needs to be drawn from a random and representative sample. Yet Invamer-Gallup, Colombia’s leading polling agency, only conducts interviews in the nation’s four largest cities! While the citizens of Bogotá, Medellín, Barranquilla, and Cali are without doubt entitled to their opinions, and may even strongly support their president, by no stretch of the imagination can the views of people who make up less than a third of Colombia’s population be considered representative. Even worse, the views of the more than ten million Colombians who live in rural areas are totally ignored. Imagine if a pollster reported that President Obama had an 80% approval rating, based on survey results from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston. Who could take it seriously?

Colombia’s long history of political assassinations has created an environment in which dissident voices are reluctant to run for office. This is one of the reasons that in Uribe’s 2006 re-election, only 45% of the population bothered to vote, compared with 63% and 74% in elections in neighboring Ecuador and Venezuela held the same year. At the ballot box, Uribe has never achieved the level of support the pollsters say he has. Colombia is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in Latin America, and the U.S. military is currently planning to expand its presence in seven new bases there. If President Obama is cutting Uribe slack because of his “overwhelming popularity,” maybe he should think again.