On the September 22 edition of NBC's Today, NBC White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell claimed that the debate within the Republican Party on detainee abuse is “an election year plus” for Republicans and that “the president has seen a modest bump in his approval rating since his latest effort to talk about his war on terror.” As O'Donnell spoke, an onscreen graphic compared the president's approval rating in three different polls with his job approval rating in the previous version of each poll: a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, taken September 16-19, that showed Bush at 45 percent, up five percentage points from their previous poll; a USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted September 15-17, that had the president up four percentage points, from 40 percent to 44 percent; and an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, conducted September 8-11, that had Bush's approval at 42 percent, up three percentage points from their previous poll. But O'Donnell's report ignored a New York Times/CBS News poll, conducted September 15-19, which showed Bush's approval rating moving up just one point -- from 36 percent to 37 percent -- and included more recent data than either the NBC News/Wall Street Journal or USA Today/Gallup polls.

From the September 22 edition of NBC's Today:

O'DONNELL: Political analysts say both the fight and the quick resolution are an election year plus. The president has seen a modest bump in his approval rating since his latest effort to talk about his war on terror.