O. Henry on Polls

In view of the importance that is often given to polls when (and only when!) those polled voice dissatisfaction with Washington, US foreign policy, and America's leadership — notably in Thomas Crampton's International Herald Tribune article — it is perhaps not unnecessary to remember that September 11 also marks the birthday of O. Henry, the US short-story writer (William Sydney Porter, 1862-1910) who wrote that

A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.

What is funny (for want of a better word) to note in the poll, is that among the 35 countries in which a majority of the 34,330 people showed "an unusually low level of support for U.S. foreign policy", Iraq did not seem to be present… How odd…