ABCNews.com has a poll up on the three Yale students arrested for burning an American flag. Here’s the text of their poll question (emphasis mine):
Three Yale students have been arrested on charges of arson, reckless endangerment and other crimes for allegedly burning a flag on the porch of their apartment. One of the students translated for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. None have criminal records.
Should flag burning be a crime?
Their apartment? The actual AP article of the incident up on ABCnews.com refers to the porch as “a porch” rather than “their porch.” Big difference. The Yale Daily News gives an even more bizarre account that suggests the students were lost in New Haven and picked this particular flag to burn at random:
Posick said police officers first encountered the students when they passed the trio while driving down Chapel Street into Fair Haven. The students flagged the officers down, she said, asking them how to get back to campus.
The students told the officers they had been visiting a friend and had gotten lost while returning home, she said.
Later, when the officers were driving back down Chapel Street to see if the students had found their way back, they saw that a flag hanging off of 512 Chapel St. was engulfed in flames, Posick said. While one officer removed the burning flag, the other officer stopped the students, who were further down the street.
These online polls are statistically worthless anyway, but they can, at the very least, deal with the facts.