The purveyors of anti-Barack Obama vitriol know their audience well. Eager for further proof of what they think they already know, which in this case is that America’s current chief executive fouls things up as regularly as the sun rises in the east, their followers reliably accept all scuttlebutt about the president without even considering whether the information they’re swallowing hook, line, and sinker is accurate or relevant. For shrill radio talk show hosts and their more photogenic brethren at Fox News, having that knowledge makes willful misleading a very easy job.
Last week the perpetually frothing portion of the right wing blogosphere gleefully celebrated the findings of a Quinnipiac University poll that were released July 2, or more specifically the response to one specific question.
The particular item seized upon last week as further evidence the country’s Socialist-in-Chief is single-handedly leading America to Hell in a handbasket: according to the poll, 33 percent of those asked “Which of America’s presidents since World War II would you consider the worst?” feel America’s present leader deserves that designation. A mere 28 percent felt the distinction should go to Mr. Obama’s predecessor, the chief executive under whom the economy tanked, perhaps due to the strain of an obscenely expensive, poorly-executed and as it turned out, totally unnecessary military intervention in Iraq.
Quinnipiac University’s polling institute is considered one of the most credible such organizations in the country. It’s regularly cited by media outlets ranging from the New York Times and MSNBC to Fox News and the Wall Street Journal.
This particular poll’s data was collected by telephone between June 24-30, and was based on responses from 1,446 registered voters. Great pains were taken to make sure that the respondents, whose number was approximately one-1,000th of 1 percent of the number who cast ballots in the presidential election of 2012, would reflect a statistically average group. Consequently, 73 percent of those questioned were white, 13 percent were black, 7 percent were Hispanic, with the remainder characterizing themselves as “other.” Sixteen percent of those polled were ages 18-29, 30 percent were 30-49, another 30 percent were 50-64, and the others were 65 or older. Forty-seven percent were male, 53 percent were female; 31 percent self-identified as Democrats, 26 percent as Republicans, 35 percent as independents, and the rest something else.
The poll’s other findings were for the most part unsurprising and not terribly useful to Obama-bashers (or defenders). Democrats polled favor the health care law passed by Congress and the president in 2010 by 83 percent to 15 percent; Republicans oppose it 90 percent to 9 percent.
Twenty-six percent of those surveyed think the economy is getting better, 31 percent think it’s getting worse, and 43 percent think it’s staying about the same. Thirty-seven percent think President Obama is doing a good job with the economy, 34 percent think we were better off under his predecessor, and the rest think America’s most recent two presidents were about the same. Fifty percent approve of Obama’s handling of the environment (40 percent disapprove), 44 percent approve of the way he’s dealing with terrorism (51 percent disapprove), and 51 percent feel he cares about the needs and problems of ordinary Americans (47 percent disagree).
Something those trumpeting last week’s news didn’t mention: In 2006, the sixth year of George W. Bush’s presidency, a Quinnipiac poll revealed that 34 percent of Americans felt the country’s worst president since WW II was ”¦ drum roll, please ”¦George W. Bush! Richard Nixon was second, at 17 percent. And had some pollster asked a similar question in 1998, it’s reasonable to assume the “winner” of the worst president designation at that time would have been Bill Clinton, the incumbent who was in year six of an eight-year presidency.
If eight years from now Quinnipiac University pollsters ask 1,446 random Americans who the nation’s worst post-WW II American president is and the serving commander-in-chief is in the midst of his or her second term, the likely choice will be President Hillary Clinton, President Rand Paul, President Marco Rubio, President Martin O’Malley, President Ted Cruz, President Chris Christie, or whoever’s in office at that moment, although many of those responding likely won’t know if Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower are American presidents, reality TV stars, or members of America’s World Cup soccer squad. Those making their living “reporting the news” in 2022 will loudly proclaim (or pointedly ignore) the poll’s results, depending on how useful the findings might be for the furthering of their personal agenda, or more likely the agenda(s) of their corporate employers.
Ultimately, the purpose of irresponsible and pointless questions like “Who is America’s worst president since World War II?” is not to shed any light on what’s right or wrong with America, but rather to keep those who conduct polls in the limelight, and thus maintain (or with luck heighten) an easily led public’s perception of their supposed relevance.
— Andy Young, a high school literacy and English teacher in York County, is a registered voter. Sadly however, he was not one of the 1446 people asked by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute to select America’s worst post-World War II president.
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