NBC Reporters Reject Own Poll Showing Americans Support CIA Interrogations

NBC Reporters Reject Own Poll Showing Americans Support CIA Interrogations (NewsBusters)

On her 12 p.m. ET hour MSNBC show on Tuesday, host Andrea Mitchell could barely conceal her disgust while reporting on a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showing a majority of Americans supported the enhanced interrogation tactics used by the CIA after September 11th: "51% said that the procedures used, the interrogation enhanced tactics, which have been defined as torture, 51% said that they were acceptable under the circumstances. Only 28% said that they went too far."

Turning to NBC's chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, Mitchell cautioned that "polling is always an imprecise measure because of the way questions are asked." Engel replied: "It seems to show that people think that what happened was justified. And that the means justified the ends. I think history will judge whether that is the right opinion or whether it is an emotional opinion."