Now the folks at Gallup are really starting to annoy me.

Gallup released poll results this week after asking Americans who was to blame “for the rash of threatening e-mails, phone calls, and vandalism that erupted last week after the healthcare bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives.”

Gallup posed three possibilities for who was to blame. Gallup asked if the incidents were driven by “harsh criticism from conservatives commentators” and/or from “Republican leaders.”

Gallup also offered up a third possibility [emphasis added]:

Controversial political maneuvers by Democratic leaders to get the votes needed to pass the healthcare legislation

What exactly were the “controversial” maneuvers Democrats used? Gallup never spells them out. Gallup simply presents polling subjects with the factual conclusion that Democrats used “controversial” tactics to get the health care bill passed. But is that true? Obviously, the GOP Noise Machine made that claim with at-times comically over-the-top hyperbole about votes being purchased and Democrats acting in abusively corrupt ways.

But there was never any proof of that. And Democrats ended up not using the so-called “deem and pass” voting tactic, which Republicans threw a fit over. So why did Gallup adopt Rush Limbaugh language about Democrats using “controversial” tactics to pass a bill? Is it “controversial” to get a majority of members of the House and the Senate to vote in favor of a bill, and then have the president sign it into law? It is “controversial” to engage in all kinds of behind-the-scenes negotiating in order to attract as many “yes” votes as possible?

Last time I checked it wasn't. So again, why in its polling did Gallup present as fact the partisan allegations lodged by Republicans about how Democrats passed health care reform?