OK, one more time...

...and I won't say it again (today, anyway...).

Don't panic.

A few days ago I noted that the alarms that seemed to go off all over the blogosphere when a CBS poll noted a drop in Kerry support among veterans might be premature without a closer look at the internals.

Eric Boehlert provides that service at Salon (you're all subscribers now, right>).

But perhaps what received the most press play as proof positive that the Swift boat charges were hurting Kerry was a separate, subset finding from that same CBS poll. It showed support for Kerry among veterans had fallen from 46 percent right after the convention in late July, to 37 percent in the wake of the Swift boat allegations. Solid proof, right? Well, it would be more solid if the CBS poll of veterans wasn't based on such a skimpy sample size of just 165 respondents, giving the survey a whopping margin of error of between 7 and 8 percent. That means of the 165 vets polled nationwide by CBS, roughly 15 fewer expressed support for Kerry between the July and August surveys.

So remember, don't p...oh yeah. No more today.