This is in response to the June 26 article titled "Obama or Romney in November? Who cares?"

It was a classic spin job on an Associated Press-GfK poll that would have made the Democratic National Committee proud.

The AP's slant was that the electorate doesn't see any distinction between the ability of the two candidates to get the economy going.

The article highlighted that "6 in 10 gave answers ranging from slim to none." (This quote in itself is inflated and does not accurately reflect the poll results.)

It went on to cite those parts of the poll that supported its theme--specifically, that 24 percent of the respondents said that neither candidate would have "a little/no impact at all" and that 26 percent said they would have "just some."

However, the AP completely ignored that part of their poll that didn't support its theme--and that part is significant.

If I read only one paper a day, I would have questioned the conclusion of this article, but I do read more than one paper a day.

And the "rest of the story" in this case is that 48 percent of the respondents said the outcome would have a "great deal" of impact on the economy.

So the actual conclusion of the AP's own poll was that 72 percent of the respondents think there will be "some" to a "great deal" of "impact" on the economy depending on who wins the election.

Thus, in my opinion, the AP article was misleading and journalistically dishonest. No real surprise from the AP there. But I have to find The Free Lance-Star to be somewhere on the continuum between a journalistic co-conspirator and intellectually lazy.

Indeed, even The Washington Post was journalistically honest enough to include a pie chart so one could see all of the results. Please tighten things up.

Blake J. Robertson

Stafford