A push poll robo call.
Just when Dr. Gilbert had figured out a key vulnerability in Toyota's ETCS in, like, 20 minutes, and he and Sean Kane went off to Congress to tell all about it and the related statistical proof of a serious safety issue...Toyota, you may or may not recall, thought about how to push back. They tried it in a few ways. The Washington Post and then Daily Kos revealed Toyota's push back with the Benenson Push Poll. Here is the writeup by Daily Kos member Christian Dem in NC from 2010.
An excerpt:
Benenson's survey, titled the "Kane/Gilbert Debunking Message Test," directed pollsters to read several negative statements about Gilbert and Kane. The survey noted that a study Kane had commissioned from Gilbert was "nothing more than a manufactured stunt -- a parlor trick that would affect nearly all cars the same way, not just Toyotas." Having heard that, respondents were asked to say whether that changed their opinion of Kane's and Gilbert's credibility.
Ha ha ha.
and in the Washington Post, whose reporter seems to have gotten docs leaked by Congressional investigators who received what Waxman subpoenaed (as detailed in the article), we read this nicely turned quote from Mr. Kane:
"If we weren't finding something that was meaningful, they wouldn't be spending this kind of time and money," he said in an interview. "But what we're seeing is that they're willing to go to great lengths to discredit anyone who asks questions about their products."
Now that Barr has found something even more meaningful, and questions have been asked and answered, we see that Toyota is again spending "this kind of time and money" to surpress the emerging truth.
Is it parlor tricks?