In the cool, calm light of morning, after reflecting on the matter and on some intelligent comments from our readers, I want to offer a few more thoughts about yesterday’s excitement (which, for the uninitiated, is available for all to see in my original post and our correction post).

First and most important, I got it wrong and accused Brian Williams, or someone within NBC doing his staff work, of “borderline mendacity,” or coming awfully close to lying, if not lying outright. For that, I simply apologize.

Usually an apology all by itself is all that’s called for in these situations. But since a lot of people, including Hugh Hewitt, relied on my questioning of Williams and NBC, I think further explanation is called for. It’s useful to me, and perhaps interesting to you, to know the origins of yesterday’s posts. Besides, maybe other bloggers will learn from my experience.

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We stand corrected.

In our post below, I went to great lengths to demonstrate that NBC’s Brian Williams had asked Mitt Romney a question based on non-existent or distorted polling data. I was wrong.

As Hugh Hewitt reports here, there apparently is indeed a poll question that supports Williams’ question to Romney. Here’s the question:

24. We often hear people talk about the importance of unifying the country. Let me read you a series of different kinds of people who might become president. For each one, please tell me whether you feel that a person with this kind of background would make it easier to unite the country, harder to unite the country, or that it would really not make that much difference. *

.THIS TABLE HAS BEEN RANKED BY THE PERCENTAGE WHO SAY EASIER TO UNITE THE COUNTRY

Easier To Unite The Country/Harder To Unite The Country/Makes No Difference Either Way/Not Sure

A woman ……………………………………………… 23 29 44 4 [251]

An African American …………………………….. 16 25 55 4 [249]

An evangelical Baptist preacher…………….. 9 46 40 5 [247]

A person who is over age seventy …………. 6 37 53 4 [248]

A Mormon ……………………………………………. 3 44 49 4 [250]

* Asked of one-half the respondents (FORM A).

We apologize for our error. Two things are notable here, however:

• We quoted Question 25 from the poll. Question 24 is the one with the data on which Williams relied, but Question 24 does not appear in the document to which MSNBC linked on its debate coverage page. If you look at that document, you’ll see that the portion of the poll that was available to us skips from Question 22e to Question 25. We were simply looking at the data MSNBC released, trying to find support for Williams’ question, and we relied on what was available. Still, we were wrong, and we apologize.

• On the now-available Question 24, the category “An evangelical Baptist preacher” got a 46% response, even higher than the 44% for “A Mormon.” In other words, 46% of respondents thought an Evangelical Baptist preacher “would make it . . . harder to unite the country. 44% said the same about a Mormon. And yet Romney the Mormon, not Huckabee the evangelical Baptist preacher, is the one who got the question. We still think NBC and Williams have some explaining to do about that.

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The Houston Chronicle

Mormonism in evangelical voter guide

Religion and Ethics Newsweekly

Religion and Presidential Primaries

Dr. Michael Ruffinin

Religion becoming a political divide

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Note: This post has been corrected here.

I’ve had a chance to look at the NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll that Brian Williams referenced in the GOP debate last night, and it seems very clear that Williams’s question is simply outrageous. Whether he intended to or not, Williams (1) added unsupported “gloss” to the poll and (2) ignored virtually identical data about the other Republican candidates.

Here is Williams’ question, from the MSNBC transcript:

Williams: Governor, we’ve got an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll coming out in the morning that says, among a lot of other things, 44 percent of respondents say a Mormon president would have a difficult time uniting the country. And I know you’ve answered similar questions about what you were able to do with the Catholic vote in Massachusetts, but 44 percent nationally, writ large, is a large number.

(Emphasis added. The video of Williams’ question, and Romney’s answer, is in the “Straight from the Source” box in the top right corner of the blog.)

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Debate Comment (Updated)

Lowell: Well, just when we thought it really was quiet and The Question was fading away, it did come up in the debate, about 70 minutes in. Brian Williams touted an NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll that’s set to be released this morning, and noted that 44% responded that they still had concerns about a Mormon serving as president. (We will post the poll’s exact question and numbers as soon as they are published.)

Romney’s response, paraphrased: “I don’t think the American people will choose their president based on where he goes to church.”

That was not all he said, but he did get right to the heart of the issue.

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