Apparently, it depends on what side of the pond you get your news.

This week, two major polls of Iraqi public opinion were released -- one by the Sunday Times and one by ABC News. The former thinks the Iraqis are optimistic. The latter thinks pessimistic.

From my perspective, this is why public opinion polling must be considered a soft science -- maddeningly soft, for there are hard elements to it that make one dream of finding authoritative answers. For instance, the statistical theorems underlying the whole endeavor -- notably the central limit theorem -- are delightfully constant. But the application of these constant principles to public opinion is indeed soft. There is softness in determining what questions to ask, and softness in determining what the answers mean.

The difference in question choice seems to explain much of the difference between the reports of these two polls, which -- by my reading, anyway -- are not providing too many diametrically opposed answers. By and large, they are just asking different questions. Consider the top four findings that the Sunday Times highlights.

1. Iraqis prefer post-Saddam Iraq to Saddam's Iraq.
2. Iraqis do not think that there is a civil war.
3. Iraqis think the security situation will improve.
4. Iraqis want a united government.

Now, what of ABC News' top four findings?

1. Iraqis have personally experienced attacks nearby.
2. Iraqis have experienced the death of a loved one.
3. Iraqis don't feel safe in their neighborhood.
4. Iraqis don't think their own lives are going well.

It seems to me that the difference between headlines is reducible not to a difference in answers to similar questions, but to a difference in the questions themselves. ABC News focuses on how people are dealing with the situation personally. The Sunday Times focuses on people's assessment of the broader socio-political situation. Is it surprising to see differences of this nature? We have experienced an inverse of this seeming paradox of late: the average American sees himself as doing very well, the nation not as well.

Now, of course, the ABC News poll is a wide-ranging one (nearly 8 times as many substantive questions as the Sunday Times poll). So, it also includes the socio-political types of questions. However, it is interesting to note that of the 72 questions that were asked between the two polling firms, only four (by my count) were substantively similar. Meanwhile, only one question that is substantively similar produced a substantively different answer. That was -- is it better in post-Saddam Iraq? Only 37% of respondents to ABC News say yes, while 49% of respondents to the Sunday Times say yes. These differences are outside the margin of error (though I would note that because of the large number of questions -- 72 in all -- you will likely find at least one that is wrong by an amount that exceeds the margin or error). But, in the case of this question, context is important. ABC News asks this question after 6 questions in-a-row about personal life. The Sunday Times asks it last, after five questions about the socio-political context and two about personal life. Thus, ABC News respondents might have been more "primed" to answer negatively than Sunday Times respondents.

Does this mean that ABC News' methodology, as it pertains to this question, is invalid? No. How about the Sunday Times' approach? Again, no. I am sure that ABC News and the Sunday Times had good and noble reasons for placing the question where they did. I do not know which placement is preferable. My suspicion is that there is no preferable placement: get Iraqis thinking about the nation as a whole, they are inclined to say that things are better in post-Saddam Iraq; get them thinking about their life in particular, they are less inclined to say that. It seems to me that this is not an either/or situation -- as in either ABC News is correct or the Sunday Times is correct. It is, rather, a situation that we all know very well: the human psychology is quite complex; accordingly, a person's answers to questions are almost always conditional.

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