fayfreethinkers.com

From:
Here.
Twice a year, pollsters for the Pew Research Center ask Americans to say the "one word that best describes" their "impression of George W. Bush." As late as February 2005, the top two volunteered responses were "honest" and "good." The new top two: "incompetent" and "arrogant."


DOUG
"Idiot," "Stupid" and "Arrogant" were also in the top 10.

DAR
I was checking out this Pew Reserch site today too, and found this:

***
Consistent GOP Support for Bush Policy

Just as Republicans remain confident of success in Iraq, they also have consistently supported the Bush administration's Iraq policy. Roughly three-quarters (76%) say the war was the right decision, which is unchanged from January and virtually the same as in August 2006. Last February, GOP support for the decision to go to war was only modestly higher (81%).

And:

...stable majorities of Republicans believe U.S. troops should remain in Iraq until the situation there is stabilized; 71% say that now,...

And:



Nah, there isn't any difference between Dem's and Repub's.

DAR
My one word to describe Bush didn't make the list.

Disaster.

What was interesting about the frequency-descriptive word poll is the word
LIAR. Note that Liar as a Bushdescribe, fell from '03-'07 in frequency.

INCOMPETENT is now the leading Bushdescribe, which once again suggests that the Peter Principle is still alive and valid. Rove, FOX and ABC could only keep the snowball rolling for so long until the Principle kicked in.

For you folks you weren't around when the 1968 term entered our public lexicon try wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. Jan. 24-25, 2007. N=1,003 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.

"Do you think President Bush's decisions about policy in Iraq and other major areas are influenced more by the facts or more by his personal beliefs, regardless of the facts?"

Facts 22%
Personal Beliefs 67%
Unsure 11%

"At this point in time, do you personally wish that George W. Bush's presidency was over, or don't you feel this way?"

Wish It Was Over 58%
Don't Feel This Way 37%
Unsure 5 %

CBS News Poll. N=1,142 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults).
"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?"

Feb. 8-11, 2007
Approve 32%
Disapprove 59%
Unsure 9%

Note earlier this year: 1/18-21/07
Approve 28%
Disapprove 64%
Unsure 8%

COMPARE:

Time Poll conducted by Schulman, Ronca & Bucuvalas (SRBI) Public Affairs. July 13-17, 2006. N=1,003 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.

"Based on what you remember from President Clinton's administration, do you approve or disapprove of the job Bill Clinton did in handling his job as president?"

Approve 70%
Disapprove 27%
Unsure 2%

If Hitler had lived long enough to write his memoirs, you could use the two as bookends. The word for W is 'evil' - not incompetent. He hasn't gotten anything backwards. He is deliberately destroying America and the rest of the world (or at least trying - and doing a pretty good job of it). You choose whether the cause is his end-timer belief system or neocon-artist greed.

NEW YORK Al Neuharth, the former Gannett chief, USA Today founder and currently weekly columnist for that newspaper, has had a change of heart.

A year ago, in honor of President's Day, he stated that while he was often critical of George W. Bush, he did not, and probably would not ever, crack his list of the five worst presidents we've ever had.

A year later he admits he was wrong. In his USA Today column today he announces that Bush has not only cracked the bottom five, he's now at the very bottom.

Last year, Neuharth, a World War II hero who has met every president since Eisenhower, listed his five worst as Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan, Ulysses Grant, Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon. "It's very unlikely Bush can crack that list," Neuharth wrote.

Now he admits: "I was wrong. This is my mea culpa. Not only has Bush cracked that list, but he is planted firmly at the top." By top, of course, he means bottom.

Read the rest here.

I read another article on worst presidents on the Working Assets site. The writer's contention is history will decide - we're too close to Bush (and Nixon) to tell. His criteria for judging was not only how much damage, but how long-lived the damage was. (He picks Buchanan as the worst, because Buchanan's incompetence ruled out any peaceful resolution to the conflict between North and South and guaranteed the Civil War, even though it didn't occur on his watch, and we still suffer the fallout from that.) By that criteria, Iraq won't be the Bush albatross - the unwarranted spying on Americans, "signing statements", rendition and torture, and other unconstitutional laws and behaviors (the Republican-controlled congresses who gave him the totalitarian powers he asked for will be seen as enablers) will be what mark him as bad - and how long before they revoked will determine whether or not he is the worst.

My opinion: The worst by far was Lincoln; FDR is second, Wilson third, Bush fourth, Nixon fifth. Maneuvering the US into WWI and WWII was worse than maneuvering the US into Iraq. Nixon was a lying scumbag, but didn't get the US into any wars (Kennedy gets the blame for 'Nam), and on the plus side promoted peace with China. Lincoln, who destroyed the voluntary union, shreaded the Declaration of Independence and the US Con, started a massively bloody war, personally approved of war crimes, had political opponents and journalists imprisoned, started corporate welfare (he was bought and paid for by some railroad corporations, which he rewarded lavishly); he suspended habeas corpus, packed legislatures, and in short, was the US' worst tyrant ever. (For details, read The Real Lincoln by Thomas DiLorenzo.) We freedom-lovers owe a debt of gratitude to John Wilkes Booth. Sic semper tyrannis.

As for Bush descriptors, both "incompetent" and "evil" seem apt. Wouldn't it be nice if he got blown away, too?

Hogeye wrote:My opinion: The worst by far was Lincoln;...

DAR
I did a little reading on the Lew/Rothbard cult the other night (this is the spring from which those who follow the anarchy/capitalist dogma drink, and drink deeply) and observed one of their curious beliefs is this viceral hatred of Lincoln. Perhaps it is because he is so widely popular and contrarianism is very important to the Lew/Rothbard clan. Lincoln usually comes in first in lists of best presidents so to be a faithful contrarian you have to really hate him.

The great emancipator:




***
Thursday, June 1, 2006 10:55 p.m. EDT

Poll: Reagan, Clinton Most Popular Presidents

Americans believe George W. Bush is the worst president since 1945, while Ronald Reagan was the best and Bill Clinton made both lists in a national Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday.

Thirty-four percent of those surveyed ranked Bush at the bottom, 17 percent said Richard Nixon was the worst and 16 percent picked Bill Clinton. The poll found 56 percent of Democrats, 35 percent of independent voters and 7 percent of Republicans thought Bush was the worst.

The telephone poll of 1,534 registered voters nationwide was conducted May 23-30 with a sampling error margin of about 2.5 percentage points.

2006 Associated Press.

AND:

From Gallup, average job approval rating during term:

Kennedy 70%
Eisenhower 65%
Bush I 61%
Clinton 55%
Johnson 55%
Reagan 53%
Nixon 49%
Ford 47%
Truman 45%
Carter 45%

The "great emancipator" wasn't as good as he's cracked up to be, but he isn't as bad as Hogeye's cult would have you believe. The south determined to secede if Lincoln was elected and the first shots were fired on a federal fort by southerners in South Carolina. That's a pretty conclusive start of war, without any input from Lincoln. On the other hand, he most certainly was not an eqalitarian and the slaves he emanicipated were those in the southern/seceded states he had no control over at the time, as a ploy to bring the abolishionists to support the war (most of them were also anti-war) when support started dropping. Americans don't handle long wars very well. (Especially if they're in absolutely no danger themselves - but that's been the problem with "other" wars - they were in danger during the Civil War.)

It's really a wonder that such a "free-trader" as Hogeye calls Wilson's and FDR's response to unlimited submarine warfare in the Atlantic (and FDR waited until we were attacked in the Pacific before moving on the problem of unlimited submarine warfare in the Atlantic, just because of the WWI problems) "maneuvering the U.S. into WWI and WWII". He seems not to have noticed that Eisenhower got us into Vietnam. Kennedy tried escalating and was about to pull out when he was assassinated. Johnson has the blame for continuing the escalation just because he couldn't find a way to get out that wasn't political suicide (so he ended up committing political suicide anyway). Nixon was the serious escalator with his "secret plan" to get us out. He didn't "declare victory and go home" until after he was re-elected and didn't have anything to lose.

Barbara wrote:The south determined to secede if Lincoln was elected and the first shots were fired on a federal fort by southerners in South Carolina. That's a pretty conclusive start of war, without any input from Lincoln.

No; only some of the states seceeded when Lincoln was elected. The rest (including Arkansas) didn't seceed until Lincoln declared war. The "attack" on the munitions ships reinforcing the tariff-collection fort at the US' most busy port was arranged and scripted by Lincoln - it was the Gulf of Tonkin of that day. Lincoln even had a food supply ship leading the munitions ships, so he could claim the southerns shot a mere food supply ship. At the time, Lincoln fooled virtually no one; both American and European newpapers easily saw through the ploy, and reported it as Northern provocation and instigation of war. Both pro and anti-slavery people in Arkansas generally agreed that there was a right to seceed, as did both northern and southern newspapers. It took a Saddam is in with Al Qaida-style lie to con Americans into war - the ridiculous Clay-Lincoln claim that the Union preceeded the states. (Not to mention the established legal opinion that "union" meant "voluntary confederation" and secession was totally legal.)

Wilson started US involvement in WWI by supporting England's "starvation blockade" - the attempt to starve German civilians. Most people thought that Americans who knowingly traveled in a war zone with well-publicized sub attacks did so at their own risk; Wilson started US involvement ostensibly to protect USAmericans who engaged in such foolhardy behavior. (Many don't know that the Germans took out advertisements warning people not to take the Lusitania - that they would attack.)

FDR, after failing to coax Hitler into attacking a US ship, finally succeeded in goading Japan to attack, after insulting their peace delegation, sending war ships to nearby China, arranging an embargo, and purposely leaving Pearl Harbor a sitting duck. (FDR had to replace the Pearl Harbor commander who refused to be a duck with a more pliant/dumb commander.)

Re Vietnam: Actually US involvement goes back to Truman, but Kennedy is the one who ramped it up from a handful of advisors to many "Special Ops" trainers and later troops. By the time Kennedy was assassinated, there were more than 16,000 "advisors" in Vietnam.