In the Aug. 28 issue, Time magazine published some of the results of a new poll all about Hillary Clinton. I have a few things to say about that, but first I want to talk about the straw poll ballot they printed on the cover.

The cover of the magazine shows Hillary’s face, and underneath it only two choices, “LOVE HER” and “HATE HER.” Purchasers of the magazine are invited to check one or the other option, and mail in the cover.

Since I will not be buying a copy of Time to register my choice, I will cast my vote here instead. And I vote for “LOVE HER.”

No, I would not vote for Hillary, for any office. That’s because I oppose her positions in matters of governance, and do not trust her to make decisions on my behalf. But I do love Hillary Clinton, and I hate no man, woman, or child. I am disappointed in Time’s cavalier use of “love” and “hate” as a sort of shorthand, meaning approval or disapproval of the political opinions or actions of a human being. Is anyone else disgusted by this?

In the fullness of time, Time will tally the ballots and publish the results, and the figures will be bandied about on talk radio for a day or so. “64 percent love Hillary, and 36 percent hate Hillary,” they’ll say, or maybe the other way around. Either way, it’s a setup. If she pulls high “love” numbers, the news won’t be that Americans must be very loving, but that Hillary must be very loveable. No matter how many “hate” responses come in (and I predict they will be a minority), these will be used to portray her political opponents as a small group of “haters.”

And it will dovetail with their narrative of Hillary being “divisive” and “polarizing.” When “love her” and “hate her” are the only allowed responses, 100 percent of the respondents will either love her or hate her. See how divisive she is!

For the record, I also love Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and Ana Marie Cox, who reported the results of the real poll, the one conducted with real statistical sampling. This poll didn’t ask the respondents whether they “love” or “hate” Hillary, but that didn’t stop Cox from pronouncing that “Republicans hate her.” She knows this because most Republicans wouldn’t vote for Hillary.

This poll did ask some pretty pointless questions. Here’s one:

Perhaps the most intriguing partisan divide comes when Bill Clinton enters the picture. Whereas 57% of Democrats agree that Hillary should have stayed with Bill despite his affair with Monica Lewinsky, only 32% of Republicans — backers of the Defense of Marriage Act, remember? — think she should have.

Leave aside Cox’s ignorant dig at the Defense of Marriage Act, which has nothing at all to do with whether to divorce an adulterer. What I’m wondering is, why on earth would I, or anyone, even have an opinion on whether Hillary should have stayed with Bill despite his affair with Monica Lewinsky? The only correct answer, unless you are Hillary Clinton, is, “I’m sure I have no idea.”