Yes, You Can Take That Poll and Shove It

"Health care's up! Now, it's down? Now, it's both up and down!." File that one under "headlines we'd like to see."

Don't know about you but I'm getting whiplash trying to keep up with the flurry of tracking polls about the health care plan signed into law today by President Obama.Seems that we can't really make up our minds.

The latest surprise: a joint USA Today-Gallup poll which found that "by 49%-40% those surveyed say it was "a good thing" rather than a bad one that Congress passed the bill."

Fair enough but only a couple of days earlier, Rasmussen reported that 41% of likely voters liked the health care plan while 54% said they were opposed. The pollster added that those figures "have barely budged in recent months."

It gets worse. Earlier this month, an AP-GfK poll said that 43% of the people it surveyed said the White House and Congress should keep working to pass health care compared with 41 percent who wanted the opposing sides to go back to the drawing board.

The latest bump in poll popularity could very well be a case of success begetting success, as Washington Monthly's Steve Benen observes. Or it could mean that:

A) Pollsters are idiots

B) Americans are idiots

C) Pollsters and Americans are idiots

On this multiple choice test there are no right and wrong answers. It was more than slightly amusing to watch the politicians and their political hit squads work up a head of lather when the latest headlines went their way. It was good for the daily news cycle but didn't have lasting impact. We're a fickle nation, easily swayed by conventional wisdom distilled for us by our favorite talking heads on television and radio. Fact is that most Americans have only the barest familiarity with the details of the legislation passed by Congress or an accurate appreciation of what it will mean to them or their families.

But opinions? No worries. We've got tons of them. All we're waiting for is a pollster to ring the telephone to ask us to share them.