Before decisions get made in Washington -- and even before most politicians open their mouths about key issues -- there are polls. Lots of them. Whether splashed across front pages or commissioned by candidates for private analysis, the statistical sampling of public opinion is a constant in political life.

We may believe that polls tell us what Americans are thinking. But polls also gauge the effectiveness of media spin -- and contribute to it. Opinion polls don't just measure; they also manipulate, helping to shape thoughts and tilting our perceptions of how most people think.

Polls routinely invite the respondents to choose from choices that have already been prepared for them. Results hinge on the exact phrasing of questions and the array of multiple-choice answers, as candid players in the polling biz readily acknowledge.

"Slight differences in question wording, or in the placement of the questions in the interview, can have profound consequences," Gallup executive David Moore wrote a few years ago in his book "The Superpollsters." He observed that poll outcomes "are very much influenced

An entire nation is trying to figure out a profile of the sniper who, at time of writing, has killed nine people in the suburban Washington, D.C. area. My portrait: A guy, of course. Ex-military, possibly in Special Forces or like Timothy McVeigh, a Special Forces wannabe. White, in his 40s or 50s. Lives alone.

In the D.C./Virginia/Maryland area, surrounded with retired military, this narrows down the suspect list to many, many thousands. On the freeway you're surrounded by them. Cut one off, and you risk getting your head blown open. Watch out when you go to the Mall. Beat the guy in the white van to a parking space, and the next might be YOU.

There are a lot of retired, highly trained psychopathic killers out there. And some of them aren't even retired. Ask the relatives of the wives of Fort Bragg, murdered by husbands back from Afghanistan, so highly trained they kill if the vacuum cleaner gets on their nerves.

Not long ago I happened to be listening to one of our local radio call-in programs discussing that interminable subject known as Iraq. While calmly absorbing the myriad of comments flowing over the airways I was suddenly taken aback by one of the most ill-considered utterances yet to have emerged. One of the callers drew a parallel between the Saddam Hussein of today and the Hitler of the 1930's and contended appeasement is no way to approach the former in light of what occurred with the latter. I could hardly believe my ears. Apparently that benighted soul needs to re-enroll in History 101 because he missed some blatantly obvious facts. Let's recount some history. Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 and 3 years later in 1936 he remilitarized the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty of Versailles and in direct defiance of England and France. Although the latter two could have taken military action they decided to appease the Nazi appetite. Two years later in 1938 Hitler decided he would take Austria, again in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles, and Britain and France sat on their hands. Later that same year Hitler demanded the Sudetenland and a

In recent months, momentum for black reparations has continued to build. In June 2002, members of the New York City Council held hearings to discuss whether a public commission should be established to examine the question of reparations. A coalition of largely black nationalist groups sponsored a "Millions for Reparations" at Washington's National Mall on August 17, which despite a disappointing turnout, still attracted national media coverage. At the demonstration, Congressman John Conyers criticized members of Congress for their failure to endorse reparations. Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, linked the reparations cause to the empowerment of young African Americans, declaring that our children "deserve a better future."

Is this the most important election in US history?

With his TV talk of war, George W. Bush has blown smoke over what's really at stake today: the future of democracy. Not in Iraq; here in the United States.

Never in US history have we been closer to an unchecked one-man one-party rule than right now. And as the world's sole military super-power, we have made the crisis truly global.

The reality is simple: the right wing of the Republican Party controls three of the four branches of government, and is just a single vote away from taking the fourth.

The Executive, the Judiciary, the media and the House of Representatives are all in Republican hands. The Senate teeters on the edge. And the USA Patriot Act, passed in the wake of September 11, has obliterated most of the Constitutional guarantees that made this country a democracy in the first place. Should Congress go Republican in November, there will be no institutional check or balance left to guarantee that the democracy born here two centuries ago will survive.