GLAD SPRINGS, MN — The Amer-O-Pinion Polling Company conducted a flash survey over the weekend, collecting opinions about NBC news anchor Brian Williams and the scrutiny many of his anecdotes have come under recently. Williams has taken an indefinite leave of absence from doing the NBC Nightly News, canceled an appearance on David Letterman’s “Late Show,” and has generally been in hiding since having to retract and apologize for a story that he told often about being in a helicopter that was shot down while Williams was covering the Iraq War.

For their survey, Amer-O-Pinion used cell phones and standard land lines to speak to 1550 registered voters in the Great Lakes area. The poll found that while 85% of the country knows the Iraq War itself was a war based on lies, many in the country are more shocked and flabbergasted about Williams’ embellishments and fibbery. Reaction to Williams’ fall from grace depended strongly on the political and ideological underpinnings of the respondent.

Here we see the results from the question, “What offends you more: a) Being lied to by Brian Williams about things that took place while he covered the Iraq War or b) Being lied to repeatedly for months leading up to the Iraq War about the reasons we started it?”

Here are the results of the question, “Which is more offensive to you: a) Brian Williams’ lies about his exploits, or b) Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condie Rice, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz and George W. Bush lying about the existence of weapons of mass destruction?”

Respondents were also asked, “Where would you find more lies: a) In a week’s worth of programming on “mainstream” media outlets or b) Five minutes of Fox News’ Benghazi coverage?”

And finally, here are the results of the question, “Who do you blame for the lies told by Brian Williams and the lies told by the Bush Administration: a) The People who told them or b) President Barack H. Obama and his Maoist, Kenyan, Communist, Sharia, Saul Alinsky-approved agenda?”

Terry Winters of Amer-O-Pinion says his company’s findings, “are pretty consistent” with just about every major issue facing Americans today. Winters says Americans “first filter the news through their bias confirming news outlets of choice.” Then, they further “filter reality through their personal and anecdotal experiences,” ultimately consulting their “political party’s literature for the correct opinion to have on the subject.”

“Most Americans,” Winters said, “simply don’t know what to think, or how to think it, unless they’re being told what their opinions are.” That’s why, according to Winters, you can ask some Americans questions that have obvious answers like, “Is Dick Cheney a worse liar and more disgusting human being than Brian Williams?” and wind up with about half the country giving Cheney a pass, while wanting to crucify Williams.”

“I think most Americans understand that if they tune into a hyper-partisan news source like Fox or MSNBC they aren’t going to get the objective truth,” Winters told us. “But the question is do they care anymore about getting an objective truth. Surely Brian Williams deserves some castigation, condemnation and distrust now, but to see the response from the right-wing in this country, you’d think that Williams was the one who sold the country on a false war for nothing but profit.” Winters concluded, “When people are more outraged by a news personality telling  a lie about what happened in a war than they by the mountainous lies told to get us to agree to start the war in the first place, that’s why we can’t have nice things.”