One month after the terrorist attacks on September 11 2001, President Bush achieved the highest approval rating of any U.S. president, 92%. However, Bush has also set the record for the highest disapproval rating of any United States President.
[Notice: Different polls and sources yield different disapproval rating results.]
According to a Gallup poll, Bush's disapproval rating is at 69% -which is not only the highest of the Bush administration, but the highest disapproval rating in Gallup poll history. A CNN poll indicates that Bush is the least popular president in American history. In this poll, 71% of Americans disapprove of how Bush is carrying out his presidential duties. Bill Schneider, a CNN Senior Political Analyst, said, "He is more unpopular than Richard Nixon was just before he resigned from the presidency in August 1974." Nixon's disapproval rating in 1974 was at 66%. "No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup Poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president's disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark," said CNN's polling director, Keating Holland.
According to a poll by the American Research Group Incorporated, Bush's disapproval rating is at 75%. This source also showed that Republicans tend to support Bush at a higher rate than Democrats, however, the approval rating is still low. Forty-three percent of Republicans approve of Bush's overall job performance and 51% disapprove. Among Democrats, only 2% approve and 96% disapprove. On the way Bush handles the economy, 98% of Democrats disapprove and only 1% approve. Forty- one percent of Republicans approve and 58% disapprove.
I, personally, am not a huge fan of W. Bush. I feel that he may have good intentions sometimes, but his methods and actions are too rash and not well thought out. The No Child Left Behind Act is an example of this. NCLB sets high qualifications for teachers, placing even more stress on them and making it more difficult to become a teacher. Also, NCLB encourages (and rewards) teaching children to score well on the test, rather than teaching with the primary goal of learning. The war in Iraq is another rash action that should have been better planned. Our reasons for being over there are ever-changing. Yes, it is good that we have liberated all of those people, but the cost was a lot of American lives. Now we have the problem of when and how to pull our troops out. Lastly, the issue of our economy is not completely Bush's fault, but he could be doing more and making better choices to help.
Overall, there are many possible reasons behind Bush's record high unpopularity. I only mentioned a few. Bill Schneider, from CNN says, "Support for the war, the assessment of the economy and approval of Mr. Bush are all about the same – bad."
4 comments:
Only Bush could have received both the highest and lowest approval rating in American history. I approve of him except for making government bigger.
I fully believe that Bush will be treated better by history than he is by his peers. Don't be surprised if your children and/or grandchildren are reading a "Profile in Courage" about George W. Bush.
He must have really messed up to go from the highest ever to the lowest!
I like how only republicans still support him!
I personally do not like what he has done in office!
Yup Lovableloser. I cannot wait for Bush's confidential files to be released and in textbooks. They will say how he busted and prevented terrorist attacks. I am also looking forward to Obama reading these files and realizing that Bush was right after running an anti-Bush campaign.
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