Friday, December 26, 2008

Bush is Number Two


...literally as well as figuratively.

The annual USA/Gallup poll asking just over 1000 people whom they admire the most offers results both predictable and amazing. President-Elect Barack Obama was the runaway favorite, with 32% of respondents saying they admire him more than anyone else.

What's astounding is that Bush finished second. A distant second, at only 5%, sure, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that after everything he's done to this country, to the world at large and all with a shocking lack of humanity he still finished second. What's even more amazing is that he was first during the last seven years of the poll, even after the economy began tanking, long after Iraq turned into a nightmarish, never-ending quagmire, long after news broke that he was spying on us and that he ordered the detention and torture of human beings.

Finishing behind Bush were other champions of progressive causes, with John McCain showing, trailed by the likes of Pope Benedict XVI and Billy Graham, who, except for when his wife Ruth died last year, hasn't been in the limelight since the Nixon administration. Rounding the pack of the top five was Bill Clinton, whose own sloppy return to the limelight was marred and marked by bitterness, nastiness and even racism.

You have to wonder who Gallup is calling and why they keep voting more often for the guy who's either in the White House or about to enter it.

What's even more amazing was that Sarah Palin, who wasn't even known in GOP circles until two months before the election, finished a fairly close second to Hillary Clinton (20%) with 11%. Michelle Obama? A mere 3%. Condoleezza Rice finished way ahead of her with 7%.

I guess I shouldn't be too hard on the good ole boy as he's moving his boxes out of the Oval Office because Obama did beat him by 27%. But it's just amazing to me that a war criminal and economic and environmental terrorist like Bush even placed, to be followed by an Alzheimer's candidate, a homophobic pederast-protecting papist and an anti-Semite when there are so many other worthier candidates.

No Al Gore, who in rapid succession earned an Academy Award then a Nobel Peace Prize, someone who has done more to raise our awareness about the very real dangers of global warming than any other single human being on the planet. No Dennis Kucinich, who was one of the very few people in Congress who didn't get dry heaves at the thought of impeaching Bush and Cheney. No Cindy Sheehan, who for at least a brief time gave the antiwar movement a face and a story and who courageously ran against the same Nancy Pelosi who'd stonewalled Kucinich and Wexler during their own impeachment resolutions.

I suppose we ought to take what we can get and breathe a sigh of relief that Dick Cheney didn't crack the top five but you have to wonder about the collective long and short-term memory and powers of rational thinking of our people when 50 out of a 1000 of us still admire George W. Bush more than Barack Obama after his historic capture of the Presidency.

(Update: Go to my diary of this post on DKos and take the poll.)

11 Comments:

At December 26, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

We Americans have a tragic need to be herded...

 
At December 26, 2008 at 12:52 PM, Blogger jurassicpork said...

But where does it say that the shepherds and border collies have to be brain damaged?

 
At December 26, 2008 at 1:04 PM, Blogger The Minstrel Boy said...

brain fucking damaged indeed.

that there is a debate or discussion about whether or not it was legal to fucking torture people still disgusts me.

it's the same as someone who finds themselves explaining to a truckload of teenagers that the proper way to dispose of unwanted puppies is not flinging them at road signs from a speeding pickup.

the fact that you've had to have that fucking discussion at all shows a large degree of failure.

 
At December 26, 2008 at 1:56 PM, Blogger jurassicpork said...

Overton's window. It's in the middle of the house, wide open and doing a brisk takeout business that would shame a Dunkin' Donuts.

 
At December 26, 2008 at 2:44 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

MB, did you have that discussion about puppies? That sounds like something that might have happened in the desert. I remember, with horror, when my mom had a discussion with the boys on our street about how it wasb't a good thing to bash in the shells of a batch of box turtles they had collected from the woods in our neighborhood. It didn't stop them from smashing the poor, harmless critters to death. Our family was regarded as the weird ones on that street. I bet the turtle-torturers grew up to admire George Bush.

 
At December 26, 2008 at 3:36 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thinking is hard!

Really - is Gallup giving them people to choose from or are the respondents simply pulling any old name out of their asses?

I'm guessing not a lot of thought goes into their answers.

 
At December 26, 2008 at 3:39 PM, Blogger jurassicpork said...

Well, dcup, in the minds of all too many people, being in the Oval Office (legitimately or otherwise) immediately equates with unstinting admiration.

I don't pretend to understand it. I just pass on the results.

 
At December 26, 2008 at 10:38 PM, Blogger LanceThruster said...

Bit of Cindy Sheehan trivia. She got the highest totals of ANY third party candidate in the nation (17%) yet her numbers were not even mentioned vs the GOP candidate against Pelosi (6%).

 
At December 27, 2008 at 11:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Are the majority of liberal men bone smokers.

 
At December 29, 2008 at 3:34 PM, Blogger David in NYC said...

Way to go, Anonymous. You have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are as illiterate as you are gutless. Ever hear of using an identity and/or English rules of grammar and punctuation?

Didn't think so.

 
At December 29, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You prove my point davy,bend over here it comes.I'm sure again for you.

 

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