I wrote the story, with Post colleague Howard Kurtz, summarizing the results. Since Mr. Kurtz spends much of his time describing how political ads stretch the truth, it is all the more depressing to see this under his own byline. Then again, apparently not. I'll leave it to others to debate these issues. The company is headed by Doug Rivers and Norman Nie, both professors of political science at Stanford University.
Rivers is a renowned sampling statistician.
Nie was one of the principals behind SPSS, the statistical software program. His prior affiliations include the University of Chicago and the National Opinion Research Center. It's not, as one particularly caustic critic hinted, because The Post is an investor in InterSurvey-a fact that I should have disclosed in the story. It's because InterSurvey represents the first and best attempt to apply rigorous survey methods to research over the Internet. It is an effort that should be carefully watched and responsibly critiqued, but also encouraged.