Steyn falsely claims half the country approved of Bush
Conservative commentator Mark Steyn said on Fox News' Hannity that President Obama's "supposedly discredited predecessor" was a "50-50 president." However, President Bush left office with an approval rating ranging from 24 percent to 34 percent in major polls and had not seen a 50-percent approval rating in these polls since mid-2005.
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Steyn said Obama becoming a "50-50 president, like his supposedly discredited predecessor"
From the August 17 edition of Hannity:
STEYN: His personal rating is coming down now to meet the unpopularity of his policies. Basically, it's only a few weeks since Newsweek was telling us that he's a kind of god who bestrides the world like a colossus --
SEAN HANNITY (host): Right.
STEYN: -- and the more he's connected up with these policies, the more he's just another 50-50 president, like his supposedly discredited predecessor. And I think that's because most people -- a lot of people believed that he really was this post-partisan, centrist, pragmatic, fiscally conservative figure that he campaigned as, and as you and a few others pointed out, he's not.
He's -- the extreme left wing is where he's lived all his life, and he has a transformative domestic political agenda that people don't want. [Hannity, 8/17/09]
Bush's approval hadn't seen 50 since 2005
According to Pollster.com, in November 2008, Bush had an average approval rating of 25.7 percent, and an average disapproval rating of 68.9 percent. In most national polls, Bush dropped below 50 percent not long after his second inauguration and stayed under 50 percent for the remainder of his second term.
Washington Post/ABC had Bush at 33-percent approval. Washington Post/ABC News: Bush's approval was less than 50 percent from April 2005 until he left office, when 33 percent approved and 66 disapproved of the way he handled his job as president.
Fox News had him at 34 percent. Fox News/Opinion Dynamics: Bush's approval was less than 50 percent from March 2005 until he left office, when 34 percent approved and 58 percent disapproved of the job he was doing as president.
Bush was at 27-percent approval in NBC/WSJ poll. NBC News/Wall Street Journal: Bush's approval was less than 50 percent from July 2005 until he left office, when 27 percent approved and 67 percent disapproved of the job he was doing as president.
USA Today/Gallup had Bush at 34 percent. USA Today/Gallup: Bush's approval was less than 50 percent from May 2005 until he left office, when 34 percent approved and 61 percent disapproved of the way he handled his job as president.
Bush was at 24 percent in Pew poll. Pew Research Center for the People & the Press: Bush's approval was less than 50 percent from February 2005 until he left office, when 24 percent approved and 66 percent disapproved of the way he handled his job as president.
CNN reported Bush's approval at 31 percent. CNN/Opinion Research Corporation: According to data compiled by PollingReport.com, Bush's approval in the CNN/Opinion Research surveys was less than 50 percent from at least April 2006, when Opinion Research began conducting polls for CNN, until he left office, when 31 percent approved and 68 disapproved of the way he handled his job as president.
Obama should tell them to go pound sand.
And until recently, I still thought he was doing OK with his attempts at bi-partisanship. Just do enough to say, "Hey, I tried!" And then dump them and do what you need to.
But now he's going way beyond that. He won a solid victory and was handed super-majorities in the Congress. THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN SO THAT HE COULD PANDER TO THE LOSERS!!! I now think it's high time for him to bring the hammer down, whip his party into shape, and brush the Republicans into the gutter where they belong. Call out the town-hell'ers just like he did in the campaign: "IT'S LIKE THEY TAKE PRIDE IN BEING IGNORANT!"
He and the Dem's need to grow a set and realize that the Pub's are only interested in sabotaging everythign they do; that they are traitorous scum who are actuvely selling their contry out, just to regain power. THEY ARE PERPETUATING THE PROBLEMS, JUST SO THEY CAN SAY, "SEE? OBAMA DIDN'T SOLVE ANYTHING!"
I'll say it a thousand times: The Republicans have no brains, and the Democrats have no balls. (Or the "S" verison: The Republicans have no souls, and the Democrats have no spine!)
The rest of us have longer memories than Steyn. And thankfully, so does the internet. Steyn may write a book that gets lots of copies bought by his sycophants, but real historians will write about Bush's stunningly low popularity, and also explain why it was that way.
The sad thing is that without Iraq and Katrina, Bush may finished up a relatively popular president and John McCain or Mitt Romney may have beaten Hillary Clinton in the last election.
It's astounding, when you think about what Bush had. He inhereted a country in tip-top shape from Bill Clinton. After 9/11 he ahd the congress, country and the wntire world eating out of the palm of his hand. And with two years he managed to p!ss it all away. Well, the country didn't realy turn against the Iraq war until after Katrina. Katrina revealed Bush's incompetence so strakly that it made it OK to start taking a cold, hard look at some other things that were previously treated as sacrosant - like Iraq. And once people DID, the majority realized what BS it all was and turned against it. If Katrina had hit two years ealier, President Kerry may have just won re-election.
(And if the SCOUTS had not interfered with the democratic process in Florda in 2000, in violation of all constitutional priciples, we have very little deficit, no Soc Secuirty issue, no Iraq War, a cleaner environemt, a greener energy and auto industry (and one that wouldn't have been hammered by $4/gal gas!), we'd have a SC that actually believes in freedom and liberty for all, and we'd be well on our way to universal health care.
It amazing the oppourtinity we had at the time to fix everthing, for all time, and instead we chose (well, not WE, I never voted for that fool!) to twice elect a guy who couldn't have screwed it worse if he'd tried. If he DID try to create catastrophe, things might have improved. He really was THAT incompetent.
For the life of me I will never understand the mind of a conservative. Fear and Greed are the otly thing I see that motivate their philosophy.