Great moments in punditry, David Gergen edition

Every time I watch CNN, I remember how dumb pundits can be, and why I avoid watching CNN. Consider conservative commentator David Gergen. Earlier this evening, he was confused about whether Obama or McCain is currently winning. After all, one polling agency, Gallup, had released two polls with conflicting results.

Maybe if David Gergen were paid money to be a political expert, he could have found five minutes of spare time to look at all the polls taken this month, available at Pollster.com:

Obama ahead	Tie	McCain ahead
Gallup 7/27	Rasmussen 7/16	USA Today/Gallup 7/27
Rasmussen 7/25
Economist/YouGov 7/24
Gallup 7/24
Democracy Corps 7/24
FOX 7/23
Rasmussen 7/22
Gallup 7/21
NBC/WSJ 7/21
Rasmussen 7/19
Gallup 7/18
Economist/YouGov 7/17
Rasmussen 7/16
Gallup 7/15
CBS/Times 7/14
Rasmussen 7/13
ABC/Post 7/13
Zogby/Reuters 7/13
Quinnipiac 7/13
Gallup 7/12
IBD/TIPP 7/11
Newsweek 7/10
Rasmussen 7/10
Gallup 7/9
Economist/YouGov 7/9
Rasmussen 7/7
Gallup 7/6
Economist/YouGov 7/2
Gallup 7/2
Rasmussen 7/1

Ah, but of course David Gergen does get plenty of money from CNN, which thrives on excited reporting on close races. And, to quote Paul Krugman quoting Upton Sinclair today, it's hard to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. I'd expect CNN to continue its pattern of selecting its own facts in order to report on a close race from now until election day.

[Edited to add...] Adam C of Redstate is clearly experiencing some wishful thinking, but is still smart enough to understand that poll averaging is an easy and useful thing to do. Why oh why can't CNN have better conservative pundits?

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