Los Angeles Times blogger/former Bush flack Andrew Malcolm's (admitted) tendency to cherry-pick poll data to prop up Republicans and undermine Democrats is well-documented, as is tendency to distort the polls he writes about. Now he's passing off Republican polling firms as neutral observers. From his latest post:

By the time Obama made his first Louisiana trip and didn't see one drop of oil, Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal was nine days into his now eight-week full-time devotion to directing and listening and talking and consoling.

As one result, Magellan Strategies' new poll of 1,030 likely general election....

...voters in the once-staunchly Democratic state of Louisiana finds the GOP governor's approval rating at 66% while 60% now disapprove of the president's spill job. [Ellipsis in original]

Magellan Strategies is an “experienced group of individuals with career backgrounds working for the Republican National Committee, political campaigns, state parties, survey research firms, government affairs firms, and conservative grassroots organizations. Our principals have managed some of the most challenging data and technology projects for the Republican Party and conservative movement in the past 18 years.”

But Malcolm didn't mention any of that; he just presented the GOP poll as if it was from Pew or Quinnipiac.

When honest journalists reference polling conducted by partisan firms, they make clear that they are doing so. And, no, this isn't a reporter/columnist divide; it's an informative/manipulative divide. Left-of-center Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, to pick just one example of many, identifies Democracy Corps as a Democratic firm when he cites its findings. That's the way honest writers behave. The problem with Malcolm isn't that he's a conservative, it's that he's a hack.