New CNN Poll: Most (68%) see Bush presidency as a failure, 44% say due to "personal shortcomings"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Most see Bush presidency as a failure, poll shows



http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/18/poll.bush.presidency/index.html

By Paul Steinhauser
CNN Deputy Political Director

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As George W. Bush spends his final days in office, a national poll suggests that two-thirds of Americans see his presidency as a failure.

Sixty-eight percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Sunday said that Bush's eight years in the White House were a failure, with 44 percent saying this was because of his personal shortcomings and 22 percent blaming the failure on circumstances beyond his control.

Thirty-one percent said they consider Bush's presidency a success.

Half of those polled say the United States could be better off today if Al Gore had been elected president in 2000 rather than Bush, with 27 percent saying the country would be worse off if Gore had won. Twenty-two percent say things would be about the same.

[tomg]

1. I assume the remaining 32% see it as

an utter catastrophe of epic proportions.

[MidwestTransplant]

8. I would have said other. EPIC FAIL

[ixion]

2. "22 percent blaming the failure on circumstances beyond his control."

oh yes... "who could have imagined {fill in obvious result here}"

:eyes:

[Amerigo Vespucci]

6. In order for Bush to have prevented the 9/11 attacks, he would have needed some kind of advance memo

Something like "bin Laden determined to strike in the U.S.," as an example, some kind of intelligence briefing giving him advance notice of the intent to strike, and then he could have...

...what's that? He GOT a memo in August, and it was actually CALLED "bin Laden Determined To Strike In The U.S.?" And he shrugged it off? Well...never mind then.

:patriot:

[TahitiNut]

7. As the record clearly shows, EVERY action of the Cheney/Bush regime prior to 9/11 was CONTRARY ...

... to the prevention, detection, and preclusion of the 9/11 atrocities. It's NOT just that they ignored the August PDB, it's that they deliberately discontinued and disabled activities that may have prevented 9/11.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

9. Olbermann's post-mortem of the "farewell speech"...

...included a reference to Bush's "outsourcing" of the post-9/11 hunt for bin Laden, at a time when there was an excellent chance of actually taking him "dead or alive," to the Pakistanis...who were "sympathetic" to bin Laden's "agenda" and instrumental in hiding him in the first place.

The Olbermann clip is somewhere in the Political Videos forum...worth hunting down and watching if you haven't already. When you watch the Bush administration's failures in such a time-compressed manner, it's truly a "beyond belief" experience.

[fascisthunter]

3. I Think Every American Needs to Read "The Sociopath Next Door"

want to know why the country is so fucked up? We have a bunch of sociopaths running things.

[malaise]

4. Ah well we know Gore won

the 2000 elections. Fugg not so goody (as in lousy) two shoes. :D

[patrice]

5. His base thinks his "personal shortcomings" are his virtues. I find that interesting.

It is not a shortcoming to think of oneself as an agent of truth.

What is a shortcoming is thinking of oneself as The Agent of The Truth, especially when one is so historically and contemporaneously ignorant.

I wonder how many of Bush's 22% are capable of recognizing the difference between these two perspectives, or better yet, how many even care about the difference.

I think people get around money and they lose their autonomy.

[Bill McBlueState]

10. I don't like the "personal shortcomings / circumstances beyond his control" choice

The first choice suggests simple incompetence, while the second suggests an honorable effort to do the right thing. I don't think either is accurate.

How about "Knowingly volunteered to be the front man for the wanton destruction of the federal government"?