Kevin Drum can’t figure out why I think that the polling question asking respondents whether they’re glad President Obama “lift[ed] the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research,” and assumes that I am trying to suggest that the public would be with pro-lifers on this question if the question were asked with better wording. That assumption is incorrect — I explicitly denied believing in any such thing in one of the posts to which he links. As for my objection to the question: Drum gets close to it when he asks, “Is the problem that ‘lift the ban’ isn’t specific enough, since the Bush ban wasn’t absolute?” But the problem isn’t lack of specificity — it’s inaccuracy. There was no ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Even if there had been no federal funding for this research, it would have been possible — and more natural — to ask the question without using the loaded word “ban.” There’s a reason that proponents of this research have used the word “ban” throughout this debate, and it’s precisely because it frames the question in a way that’s helpful to their cause — which is exactly why a well-worded poll question wouldn’t use it.