[Repost] The truth behind President Roh Moo-hyun's 5.7% approval rating

You have probably seen Ilbe trolls trying to disparage former President Roh Moo-hyun by claiming he was a pathetic president who ended his term with an all-time low approval rating of 5.7%. To get straight to the point, this is a fabrication that mixes 1% of truth with 99% of lies, which is what Ilbe trolls do best.
In fact, according to Gallup Korea, President Roh Moo-hyun finished his term with an approval rating of 27%, which was the highest for an outgoing president.
http://www.gallup.co.kr/social/social-public**

That page is not the main page; it is the page where Gallup Korea conducts political and economic indicator surveys, reflecting data on the positive evaluation of past presidents' performance—in other words, their approval ratings. Since President Park Geun-hye was still in the early stages of her term, the full data was not displayed, but even when President Roh did not receive high evaluations, his rating never fell below 10 percent. Furthermore, his approval rating at the end of his term was indeed 27%, close to 30 percent. Lee Myung-bak's approval rating shows the low 20s, which is lower than President Kim Dae-jung, and President Kim Young-sam shows the lowest approval rating of all.
Realmeter's approval rating at the end of his term was even higher at 27.9%.
http://media.daum.net/society/others/newsview?newsid=20080222142910682

Then what is the truth behind the 5.7% they claim? It was an announcement of an in-term approval rating conducted in December 2006 by Herald Economy and a little-known polling agency called KM.
m.donga.com/3/all/20061206/8381983/1
Usually, a 4-point scale of "Doing well," "Doing very well," "Doing poorly," and "Doing very poorly" is used, but they added "Neutral" to it. The proportion of people who chose "Neutral" accounted for more than 29% of the total. In other words, didn't they exclude everyone who chose "Neutral" from the "Support" category? For reference, the approval rating survey conducted by Realmeter during the same period was 14.4%. While still a low figure, does it not show a significant difference from 5.9%?
Source: media.daum.net/politics/administration/newsview?newsid=20061208132906224
And in July 2008, when Realmeter conducted a 4-point scale survey on Lee Myung-bak's approval rating, the result was a low 16.5%. If they had conducted the survey using a 5-point scale including "Neutral," what percentage do you think the approval rating would have been?
Reference: www.todayhumor.co.kr/board/view.php?no=167919&table=sisa
In a survey asking journalists about President Lee Myung-bak's approval rating, when "Neutral" was included in a 5-point scale under the same conditions, the response "I support President Lee Myung-bak" was only 2.7%.
Source: m.news.naver.com/read.nhn?mode=LSD&sid1=102&oid=006&aid=0000031735
If we interpret Roh's approval rating as 5.7%, then Lee Myung-bak's approval rating is 2.7%, and if we include "Don't know" and "Neutral," it becomes 25.7% (combining 0.3% and 22.7%). Using the same standard, if we interpret the neutral "Neutral" response of Roh's approval rating as part of the approval rating, it becomes 35.3% (combining 29.6% and 5.7%).
3-line summary

1. The Ilbe trolls' agitation regarding President Roh Moo-hyun's 5.7% end-of-term approval rating is false.
2. The truth is that he finished his term with a record-high 27% approval rating.
3. The 5.7% approval rating is a distortion using a 5-point scale that added 'Neutral' to 'Doing well,' 'Doing very well,' 'Doing poorly,' and 'Doing very poorly.'
   http://mlbpark.donga.com/mlbpark/b.php?b=bullpen2&id=792409