Limbaugh falsely claimed Clinton approval rating "was down in the 20s"
SUMMARY: Rush Limbaugh downplayed President Bush's low approval ratings by falsely claiming that former President Bill Clinton "was down in the 20s at one point" and suggesting that Clinton had "parallel poll results" to Bush during the equivalent point in his second term. In fact, Clinton's approval rating never dropped below 36 percent, and remained above 58 percent in the Gallup poll throughout 1998, the equivalent year in his presidency to 2006 for Bush.
On the June 6 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh downplayed President Bush's low approval ratings by falsely claiming that former President Bill Clinton "was down in the 20s at one point." Moreover, noting that "Bush's approval numbers are up" to 36 percent in the most recent USA Today/Gallup poll, Limbaugh suggested that Clinton had "parallel poll results" to Bush during the equivalent point in his second term. In fact, as Media Matters for America has documented, Clinton's approval rating never dropped below 36 percent, and remained above 58 percent in the Gallup poll throughout 1998, the equivalent year in his presidency to 2006 for Bush.
According to the polling archive of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, the lowest approval rating Clinton received during his two terms was 36 percent, in a Yank/Time/CNN Poll from May 26-27, 1993. During his second term, Clinton's ratings never dropped below 53 in a Gallup poll or below a 52 percent in any poll, according to Roper Center data.
Further, during the second year of Clinton's second term, 1998, his approval rating was consistently in the 60's. The Roper Center lists Bush's all-time low at 29 percent, according to a Harris Poll conducted from May 5-8, 2006, the second year of his second term.
After asserting that "if you went back and looked at several other second-term presidents at this time in their terms, you'd find almost parallel poll results" and falsely claiming that Clinton's rating had reached the 20s, Limbaugh stated, "Jimmy Carter was way down. [Ronald] Reagan was down," adding that Bush's current low numbers are "really not unique." Reagan's poll numbers dipped to 37 percent in Gallup polls, but in his second term never fell below 43 percent. Carter, of course, never had a second term, although his poll numbers did sink below 30 percent in 1979.
From the June 6 edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: Bush's approval numbers are up, folks. This is the Gallup Poll. The latest USA Today/Gallup update on George W. Bush's presidential job approval rating finds 36 percent of Americans approving of the job the president's doing; 57 percent disapprove. This represents a modest improvement in that measure from recent weeks, a finding mirrored in several other national surveys. In early May, just 31 percent approved of Bush, marking the low point of his administration to date. A subsequent poll in May found a 33 percent rating. Now he's up to 36 percent, which is in line with his public standing in March and April. So, modest improvement.
Tracking back up -- imagine if you went back and looked at several other second-term presidents at this time in their terms, you'd find almost parallel poll results. We know that Bill Clinton was down in the 20s at one point. Jimmy Carter was way down. Reagan was down. This is really -- really not unique.
Is to see the Troglodytes pontificate about the "will of the people" when pushing their American Bigotry Amendment, yet they bulldozed straight ahead to impeach Bill Clinton, even though polls showed the public solidly against it.
Hypocrisy, anyone?
The facts have a liberal bias.
had a stable 50 to 70% job approval rating according to multiple different polling systems and polling agencies throughout his 8 years as president, even according to Fox news. [link to www.pollingreport.com]
The wave of mininformation rolls on... any Righties like to counter this claim? Is this sarcasm? How 'bout 'gentle chiding'...or 'allegory'...or 'just joshing'? Sorry. These are lies. Plain and simple. But, since he threw Reagan in there for good measure...I guess that makes it okay. Please.
One of the usual suspects will be along momentarily to chide MMFA for either "getting it wrong" or "wasting time" on this story.
Any minute now...
...that one of the hard-liners will be hit with a wave of conscience. At what point does anyone of the righties (who tout their legitimacy) finally say... 'Alright! Enough is enough!'
Beyond that... it is a measure of delusional thinking or denial.
Sad though. I think the most important element in the approval rating (or lack of approval rating) is the price of a gallon of gas. When the price looks like it's out of control, and maybe supply will be affected, Americans look for the heads of politicians (ask Nixon's boys about 1974). However, if the price goes from $2.00/gallon to $3.50/gallon, then back down to $3.00/gallon, it looks like things are getting better, and the approval bounces up a few ticks. Approval ratings are the same way. If they go from 50% to 36%, it's disaster. From 50% to 30% then up to 36% is a comeback in progress!
This is coming from a guy who had to lie to get prescription drugs. No wonder the deficit of this country is so bad, the Right didn't think that taking math would be important.
Technically, if Clinton's polls dipped into the 20s (for one week on one poll), Rush is correct. However, rounding up the number was clearly closer to 30 than 25.
What a lazy liar.
And all is swell in right wing radioland...
These people have no respect for the truth, they don't care if they get it wrong, the goal is to smear, distort, deflect, deny, all in support of... what? Of what?
these people never gave polls much credence or attention.
about facts! How shocking!
Sheesh! At least the 20% lie took ten seconds or so to verify as false.
Those of you who have been monitoring Rush a long time will remember that he was very frustrated by the polls that had Bill Clinotn's populatiry in the 60s through much of the Monica revelations and impeachment. He talked about them a lot. He - and House Republicans - were certain that if Clinton were 'twisting slowly in the wind' of unseemly accusations (and then trapped in a lie), the public would desert him. When it didn't happen, Rush started talking every week about how poll methodology was faulty, how you can't really trust polls, saying "who are these guys asking?", arguing that there should be an investigation, and claiming that the liberal media, and the pollesters (all of them, apparently) were propping Clinton's numbers up.
Because Rush sees the world through some very curved lenses, and he tends to think that his audience represents 'average Americans,' he simply refused to believe that the polls could be right in 1998. So it's a short step for someone like him to conjure up new 'facts' 8 years later. Heck, he can conjure up new 'facts' about something that happened yesterday!
"The USA TODAY poll found that Clinton is leaving office with the lowest personal-approval rating, now 21%, of any modern president."
Here's the link:
[link to www.usatoday.com]
---tried your link, wasn't anything there ("object not found")
try again
I got the same "object not found" when I clicked on the link...BUT if you SCROLL down you'll find it at the bottom of the page under the heading:
5. Clinton's mixed legacy
Since it deals STRICTLY with a USA Poll you can put stock in it or not. Everything else I've read says Clinton's Poll Numbers NEVER fell below 37%.
But I suppose THIS one Poll could validate Limbaugh's CLAIM.
Missourishowme quotes Clinton's personal approval rating. Limbaugh was talking the whole time about job approval numbers for Bush. There is a difference.
Indeed. Especially since just last week the Bush-bots were touting W's "personal approval rating" over his "job approval rating".
according to their own polls at the time (in combination with Gallup and CNN) it was never lower than 50%. (see my post above)
The only way I get to 20% is when I subtract the disapproval from the approval rate.
Rush said job approval and Clinton's did not fall below 36%.
Try this one:
[link to archives.cnn.com]
"Job approval ratings for outgoing presidents...Clinton 65%"
You're off by 44%, it seems, accoring to CNN/USA today on January 10, 2001.
Missourishowme,
Read closely. That article talks about Clinton's personal approval ratings, not his job-approval.
So basically, the country was saying "I wouldn't want him to marry my daughter, but he's a terrific chief executive of the USA".
For Bush, it's sort of like: "He's be fun to get drunk and snort coke with, but don't let him run anything more complicated than a blender."
Oh, he did say "personal", but Rush didn't, did he? So either Missouri is deliberately conflating the issue, or if that's what Rush was really getting at, then Rush was doing the same.
It's a truly shallow person who cares about "personal" approval anyway, and that's the whole problem with our system. Hey, Reagan's got charisma. Arnold's famous. But can they lead? That's what more people need to consider.
The quote from MMFA is:
During his second term, Clinton's ratings never dropped below 53 in a Gallup poll or below a 52 percent in any poll,
To me, "any poll" means "any poll".
My comment title specifically mentions "personal approval" so I did read things carefully.
Regarding who finds "personal approval" numbers important: Well, MMFA did, just last month!!
[link to mediamatters.org]
I cannot find the numbers in this link [link to www.pollingreport.com] which shows weekly or monthly polls by different polling companies, uncluding USA.
I agree the USA Today poll about personal approval of presidents is not on your list. However, all on that list ask how the president is at doing his job as a US president in one way or another.
Some have questioned my motives:
I really have only one. I have done some broadcasting on an amateur level. It is very easy to say something you did not mean to say, or to have something come out the wrong way.
The two big targets of this site seem to be Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh (although Ann Coulter seems to be focus of the week). Both of them say a lot of words in a week, and they make mistakes. MMFA has every right to, and in fact does a service in pointing out errors, even if they only choose those from the conservative side. Hey, it's their website!
What irritates me is when people try to make them out to be total fools. I'm thinking of Bill's error saying that Plano Texas told kids they could not WEAR red, and Olbermann ranted about O'Reilly making things up. Actually, red was banned from the decorations. So Bill did not make things up, he mixed things up.
Most likely, Rush remembered the low PERSONAL approval numbers for Clinton. He could have been clearer. I do not object to pointing out errors. I object to people trying to make that he is a total fool with no intelligence whatsoever.
When they said "any poll," I took that to mean any of the polling firms--such as Gallup, or Purdue Poll, etc.
But further, I would also argue that popularity does not equate job quality. Throughout his Presidency, Clinton had pretty good steady marks in both, Bush started out high, and now is a discrace.
You can fool some of them some of the time . . .
Any poll does not mean "any poll" when the context of the quote is JOB approval ratings. I find it difficult to believe you're serious.
MMfA is not claiming that personal favorability ratings are that important. They just noted that Angle lied about those ratings regarding Bush. That's important to note because favorability ratings domatter to many people, which I said was a problem. Angle is playing off of that problem for political ends, and MMfA noted that...how this comes off to you as a refutation of what I said is a mystery of modern psychology.
Greetings to you conversationalists from across the fruited plain, I am El Rushbo, your host, and this is the Excellence in Broadcasting Network. (Shuffles paper, clears throat).
I have in front of me, ladies and gentlemen, a new poll showing the approval rating for George W. Bush at 36%, up dramatically from earlier reports. Now, my friends, you know this isn't good news for the New York Times or the professors in Berkely, California. And remember this my fellow dittoheads, our former president, der Shlickmeister, well his approval ratings were also down in his second term, even into the 20's, so this is really nothing to worry about. All Presidents endure these little bumps in the road.
What's that Mr. Snerdly? You say der Shlickmeister's ratings never fell that low? Well, I guess they are partying in Rio Linda California then aren't they? My friends, just remember that I have been documented to be accurate 96.5% of the time. We'll be right back with your calls.
that is a nice one.
Limbaugh's facts are nothing but fantasies of what he wishes had happened or is happening. It is not based on what most people would call the real world.
He probably thinks he is good looking and intelligent too.
But a fantasy is still just a fantasy.
On Planet Wingnut the only thing necessary for something to become true is for them to SAY its true
It is being widely reported today that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed by two 500 pound bombs dropped from F-16s. This is the official story. Matt Drudge will soon report that al-Zarqawi was actually killed in hand to hand combat with Rush Limbaugh who was flown into Iraq especially to perform the mission. This was after several weeks of training to perform 2000 pound leg presses with Pat Robertson. I guess he will soon be off to Venezuela to dispatch Chavez on behalf of Robertson. Its good to know that law and order is being re-established in the world. Who needs that pesky U.N. anyway when you have Rumsfeld and Rice?
We don't need the U.N. to kill Zarqawi. Known terrorists are fair game for anyone. Invading countries on stacked evidence without U.N. involvement, of course, is another matter.
Would that include perpetrators of state terrorism? Or are there neat and tidy distinctions to be made here that make it all nice and clear? I'm sure you also know that not all experts in international law would agree with you. Nuff said. The main point however was that Limbaugh can be counted on to be less than accurate in his reporting of facts.
Well I was speaking about members of terrorist organizations, like Al Queda - You specifically mentioned Zarqawi, remember. I'm not sure what room there is for disagreement about that...we're not talking about assassinating leaders of foreign countries or manipulating governments, we're talking about taking out members of an independent terrorist group. A restriction on that seems rather short-sighted. What are the alternatives? Forcing other countries to do it? Or having to capture them alive, when they are willing to become martyrs to their extremist religious views? Neither option sounds realistic.
Difficult issue—no doubt. First of course you know that assassination or the use of violence has never been considered out of bounds in connection with the achievement of US policy goals even against democratically elected governments. I think of Allende and Lamumba as two of the more egregious examples but there are [link to www.doublestandards.org] others.
As far as your question about “alternatives” goes; what you or I think will make no difference regarding what this government does. Bush has demonstrated over and over again that he will do as he pleases regardless of the justifications, legality, constitutionality, or consequences. Now I am not going to deny that the US may have the right to engage in the “targeted killing” of anyone who presents a legitimate threat (see the excellent [link to www.law.duke.edu] by Howard A. Wachctel). But assassinations justified by mere membership in, or support of, a terrorist group are clearly a violation of international law and probably EO 12,333.
Should, then, members of “independent terrorist groups” be “taken out” to use your language? Suppose, despite the legal issues this raises, we all agree that this would be a useful thing to do. Then what is terrorism and who are the terrorists? Who gets to decide? Limbaugh? Hannity? Coulter? Bush? Rice? Rumsfeld? You? Me?
A 1988 [link to www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil] conducted by the US Army came up with 109 definitions of the term in common use. Surely this consideration alone should provoke a few reservations. It seems to me (and many others) that the choice to use the term “terrorist” to qualify a group or individual is primarily a political judgment. Do you really think that our problems would be over if we “took out” every single member of Al Qaida, Hizballah, Hamas, the Armed Islamic Group, Jaosh-e-Mohammed, Abu Nidal, Ansar Al-Islam, and say the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam? There are dozens of “terrorist” groups to replace them and millions ready to join. Sending F-16s after every terrorist leader seems like a terribly expensive and not terribly “realistic” solution to the problem of terrorism if that is your criterion for practicality.
Now I know that this “war” has been sold to the American public as a “War on Terrorism”, that Bush’s numbers are in the crapper, and that it is was very important to him to bring us all a “head on a stick”; but I am not naïve enough to believe either that this represents a movement toward the objective of eliminating terrorism or making the world safer for any of us. And whatever terrorism might be I’m not willing to let the likes of Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and the whole festering pox of a cadre around them make those decisions for us unchallenged. Are we going to bankrupt our Treasury by spending hundreds of billions more on this PNAC approved imperialist excursion? Predictably it wasn’t long before our right-wingnut media shills were touting this as “a bad news day for liberals”. This raises the question of what “a bad news day for NeoCons” might look like. Well, provided that the “Diebold Effect” is removed from the equation that could be just around the corner.
Of course we need to be careful about identifying targets, that's why I specifically said "known" terrorists. Isn't there someone who keeps track of terrorist members somewhere? The Intelligence community? Naturally there would have to be some oversight, which is foreign to this administration, but surely there's some responsible way to go about this. Surely there's little doubt that Zarqawi was actually a terrorist, in any event.
As for "millions" of people ready to join, that's the other part of the problem. I've made the comparison to ants before where you can stomp out all you want but if you don't find the source they'll just keep coming in. While hunting down known terrorists, we also need to reduce the causes to dramatically slow down recruitment. That would probably mean changing our policies of bullying and manipulating countries, planting bases and supporting Israel no matter what they do. Obviously the war in Iraq was a huge step in the wrong direction in this regard.
And no I don't want to spend further billions on the war, especially since there's no way to kill all the terrorists while we breed them at this rate. Capturing Osama and going after other Al Queda members is what we should have spent the money we've already flushed down this PNAC ideology toilet in Iraq on.
The main question is;if we find out about an Al Queda gathering, and have the window of opportunity to attack it, do we need UN approval? Who would say "no"? And it has nothing to do with pre-9/11 or post 9/11 mentality;even in the 80's I would find such restrictions silly. Now it's possible that without proper oversight we could get the equivalent of racist justice;pin the crime on any brown guy and say "case closed". That's a valid concern, and preventing that is important. In the case of Zarqawi, I don't think that's such an issue though.
I should add that international cooperation would be extremely helpful in these matters and make verification more built-in to the process. Of course we've burned that bridge too, but future presidents might be able to incorporate that into an anti-terrorism plan.
But Bush will never be able to reduce terrorism with his plans, not in a thousand years...that much is clear, no matter how many Zarqawis we get.
Clinton's all time low is always a little bit lower.
Limbaugh should share a cell with Coulter down in South Florida... looks like she's in trouble there, too...
[link to blogdebogs.blogspot.com]
Gotta laugh at the Rushbo picking up scraps. What happened to the mandate and political capital?
I know there is a certain percentage on the left who are die-hard ,and will support the home team no matter what, but I don't think that element is anything like the true believers on the right.
36 % has got to be close to the number that,if George W. walked into the living room with the severed head of their child, would ask what the ACLU did with the body.
With the recent Jefferson bribe deal, this difference was well illustrated. Everyone I heard that could be described as liberal pretty much said "investigate it, if he's guilty, dish out the punishment accordingly".
Despite this, righty talkers all were screaming about his getting off easy and the left's failure to convict him. Somehow, he should jump in the front of the line, while the Repubs explain their "misunderstandings".
And the man in the white house who's in touch with American values can barely fool one third of them.
If he is quoted accurately above, he did saw "Bill Clinton" and not "President Clinton", so the 20% (29% personal) is technically correct, but, as usual from Rash, totally misleading. The nation's smartest (but far from wisest) President was as president never below the mid 30's, percentage wise. Apples and Oranges (Presidental and Personal). Twist the stats or frame them to you advantage (but then again, no one but the right does that, do they?)
(Looooong day, fingers are misbehaving)
... but why is it that so many conservative talking heads just make up facts, figures, and statistics on a fairly regular basis? Also, why do they get so little flack from their listeners/viewers when caught doing it?
All time low was on his knees or ankles! LOL. I cannot help it, but its just the association.
I think the Oxymoron is sentimental for the days when the hillbilly heroin was cheaper than Clinton's polls.
Rush counts on his "brain-dead" listners,who apparently don't read anything,except right-wing rags,to get away with these falsehoods.