I keep seeing press reports about the new presidential polls out this week with headlines such as, "Bush Surges Despite Bad News." And I've gotta tell ya, I'm starting to feel a little like Kevin Costner in JFK, when he looks at his team and dramatically informs them, "We're through the looking glass now, people."

The Bush campaign just got through putting fifty million dollars on television, folks. And Kerry's still within the margin of error in most polls. With that in mind, President Bush's current numbers aren't surprisingly good, they're surprisingly bad -- as I suspect our friends in the press will begin to realize as the race settles down over the next couple of weeks.

RELATED: You'll find a worthwhile (and somewhat amusing) discussion of margin of error issues here.

UPDATE: Ruy Teixeira, who knows more about reading polls than just about anybody on the face of the earth, thinks that the paid media probably had nothing to do with the Bush bump -- it was the press conference, he says.

UPDATE POSTSCRIPT: To which I feel obligated to offer the standard political consultant's response: Yup, I'm sure you're right. The ads were probably irrelevant. Still, you know ... every time somebody goes up, the numbers move....

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