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| President Obama -- Low on the Polls |
The best President? Ronald Reagan, of course.
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| Ronald Reagan |
I have only one question. . .
Did a University
have to spend
time and energy
taking a poll
to figure out
that President Obama
is the worst President
Of the Modern Era?
(Perhaps Quinnipiac took the poll so that Jimmy Carter wouldn't feel so bad.)
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| Carter: "Thanks Obama!" No Longer the Worst President In Modern History |
Obama finished fourth in the "best" question, behind Reagan, Clinton, and Kennedy. I didn't see that in your inane post. Yaaawwwwwn.
ReplyDeleteInsane is in the eyes of the beholden. Ha!
ReplyDeleteRonald Reagan was the worst president of my lifetime and the progenitor of the destructive right-wing of today. A senile old coot and a tool of the Nutbag Wing of his now-shrinking party.
ReplyDeleteHere’s the thing about Quinnipiac’s question: It’s largely meaningless. Pollsters have been asking some variant of this question for over 15 years, and the person occupying the Oval Office at the time the question is asked always finishes at or near the top of the “worst president” rankings.
ReplyDeleteQuinnipiac asked the same question in 2006, when the Bush administration was just beginning to slip into its irreversible skid in public opinion. The result? “Bush Worst President Since 1945.” Is it true that George W. Bush had, by that point, done more damage to the country than, say, Richard Nixon? Hard to say! But Nixon and his administration were long dead by that point, and America was angry at Bush, so they named him the worst.
In early 2000, as the Clinton administration was winding down, Gallup asked respondents “which of these ten presidents we have had since World War II would you consider the worst president?” Bill Clinton finished second, with a 20 percent share. He was saved from the top spot by the comic supervillainy of the Nixon administration, which transcended the short-term memories of the American populace. Was Bill Clinton’s presidency the second-worst presidency of the previous half-century? Absolutely not. But Clinton had an affair with an intern so, at the time, that was obviously worse than Vietnam.
In 1998, ABC News asked respondents which president had done the worst job in their lifetimes. Clinton and Reagan finished at a near tie for second, behind (you guessed it) Richard Nixon.
So what are we to learn from this? When Americans are frustrated with a president, they tend to express that frustration by calling him the Worst. President. Ever. They also tend to have short political memories, except in the case of Nixon, whose transcendent evilness persisted in the American consciousness. (But even that has abated with time.)
Americans are frustrated with Obama because the economy isn’t doing all that well and veterans can’t get care at VA hospitals and #Benghazi. Is any of that worse than starting two pointless wars and getting thousands of people killed and watching the economy spiral into near ruin? Probably not! But since those wars are largely over and Obama’s the president now, people say his presidency is worse than the legitimately terrible presidency of George W. Bush.
Thank you for your thoughtful remarks. You make some valid points. Thanks again.
ReplyDelete