May 27, 2008
Editors
Weekly Standard
Re: Robert Satloff's article, "Just Like Us! Really?"
Dear sirs,
In your May 12, 2008 issue, you published an article entitled, "Just Like Us! Really?" by Robert Satloff. In his piece, he reviews findings from the Gallup Press book, Who Speaks for Islam? by Dr. John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed.
Mr. Satloff states that comments in his piece attributed to Mogahed were transcribed from an event hosted by his own Washington Institute for Near East Policy. When one listens to the audio from the event (posted on his Web site), it becomes apparent that he either: a) failed to check the quote against the actual audio recording, or b) purposely fabricated a quote to suit his needs.
Satloff writes in his piece, supposedly quoting Mogahed:
"'Yes, we can say that a Four is not that moderate ... I don't know ... You are writing a book, you are trying to come up with terminology people can understand. ... You know, maybe it wasn't the most technically accurate way of doing this, but this is how we made our cluster-based analysis.' [emphasis added].
So, there it is - the smoking gun. Mogahed publicly admitted they knew certain people weren't moderates but they still termed them so. She and Esposito cooked the books and dumbed down the text."
Listening to the audio recording, her actual response is this:
"Now terming a Four moderate, yes, we can certainly agree that probably, they're not very moderate if they're saying four to that question. It was, I mean, I don't know, you're writing a book, you're trying to use terminology people understand, you know, it wasn't maybe the most technically perfect word, I will admit, but that's how we broke the two groups apart. It was really data-driven based on this cluster analysis." [emphasis added].
Clearly, Mogahed's actual statement critiques the choice of one word, saying the word "moderate" may not have been "technically perfect." Mr. Satloff's false attribution claims she called the entire data analysis inaccurate. The decision to break out the groups was driven by the data analysis and the distinct differences that the analyses showed between groups. Mr. Satloff is welcome to disagree with the analysis, but manufacturing a quote to make one's point has no place in a reasoned and scholarly discussion.
Sincerely,
Eric Nielsen
Senior Director, Media Strategies
Gallup
NOTE: The Weekly Standard printed this letter in its 23 June 2008 issue (vol. 13, issue 39).
