http://www.zogby.com/features/features.dbm?ID=112
A poll by Zogby International asks, “Who would you rather have sitting in the White House during this time of crisis - George W. Bush or Bill Clinton?”
Even among Democrats, a majority preferred Bush.
What do you think?
I say Colin!
both choices kinda suck, but i would prefer clinton. bush is too trigger-happy.
I think it shows that democrats are better at supporting an opposing commander in chief in an our of need than many conservative republicans will ever be.
While Clinton was president Trent Lott once said that we could criticize Clinton and at the same time support our troops, but now Clinton has said repeatedly to the democrats to support Bush in this emergency (even Gore), so I would take that into account on the reasons why the poll is going that way.
I just wish conservative republicans would never forget what democrats are doing to show support, but they usually ignore it.
IMHO auch polls are meaningless. Bush is extremely popular right now, due to the “rally round” attitude that is currently pervasive. Furthermore, Clinton was never eally tested in a time of national crisis, so people don’t envision him in that manner. (You will notice that most of our “greatest” presidents are those who led the nation through wars and crises).
Clinton, easily – the guy has a working brain.
The only good thing about having Bush in charge right now is that the Republicans don’t have an excuse to throw out their obstructionist bullstuff. Can you imagine the ruckus they’d raised if Clinton had proposed a “Homeland defense” Cabinet post? As it is now, they’re already balking at the idea of increased airport security efforts…
Clinton should be in charge of public relations and feeling the pain of the Afghan people.
Bush Sr. should be in charge of overseeing military and intelligence matters.
Bush Jr. should be kept around so late-night comedians have a wealth of material.
It really doesn’t matter, you could put a ham sandwich in the oval office at a time of great crisis and people would rally around it. . .
I’d prefer a chicken sandwich, myself.
Anyhoo, I would say Clinton-he does have more experience, and he has the added bonus of being a much better diplomat and he’s a better communicator.
That said, Bush is impressing me-while I don’t agree with EVERYTHING he and his admin are doing, he’s doing much better than I thought, and as an added bonus, we do get Colin Powell.
Shouldn’t this be in IMHO, since it’s technically a poll?
Hmpht.
It’s just that kind of partisan bias that’s been ruining this country for years.
I agree that having Clinton in office now would be difficult, as I do not have faith that the long-standing tradition of sniping at him would in any way cease. Eight years of his adminstration showed clearly that hell would freeze over before some folks would just shut the fuck up and let him do his job.
And I didn’t even like the weasel.
Colin Powell??? What an ass. That man can barely run his lawnmower.
Between Clinton and Bush. . .tough one, but I’d have to say Bush by a very thin margin. Paper-thin. Too bad Bush can’t steal Clinton’s mojo and inject it in himself to gain some charisma and speaking ability.
I say the same thing I said last November – these are my only choices?
Heh. This reminds me of that famous Lyndon Johnson quote “Son, in politics you’ve got to learn that overnight chicken shit can turn to chicken salad,” when speaking of Richard Nixon.
I choose C.
Jack Ryan.
Oh, all right. We’ve got what we’ve got, but Clinton has the better intellect. I’d prefer to have seen him handle this.
Big Dog, any day of the week. (That doesn’t mean that I don’t support our current commander in chief, I do.) Clinton could follow the consequences of everything going on (cept his zipper, of course, which I still don’t care about), while W is only interested in the war. (But that is an improvement over pre 9/11 when he clearly didn’t give a damn about anything.)
I do think, however, it is true that the right wingers would not have supported Clinton under any circumstances and would have sought to undermine his leadership as they did for 8 years. They always put their own politics above legitimate election results.
I would prefer Clinton. Obviously for the intelligence and speaking ability, but also because I have a hard time believing that someone who has so many links to the energy industry can’t possibly be making decisions in which oil isn’t a major factor.
And while I will agree that Bush is doing far better than I would have imagined, he is really only at his best when his speeches are well rehearsed. Off the cuff, not so good. Pachino, DeNiro, or Nicholson could do just as well at rallying the public. It’s the nature of the game.
Pacino
DeNiro
**Nicholson **
Have to go with George W in this one. He and the staff have done a good job of handling the situation so far. I am concerned, though, that the State Dept is more concerned about coalition building rather than destroying the al-Qaeda network, but that just may be a diplomatic / PR appearance. We need to watch some of our new friends very closely.
The empirical evidence of Clinton’s dealings with terrorist threats while CinC does not encourage me to think that he would handle this crisis any better. I don’t know how history will view Clinton, but IMHO, he never seemed to understand the use of military power as a policy tool. Too many policymakers in his administration (and some gut-less brass) seemed to see the military as a testing ground for social initiatives (here and abroad) rather than a tool for defense. In Bill’s defense, though, the public and congress seemed to agree.
“Great” Presidents are consensus builders (amongst other things). Going into a time of war, you need not only political consensus, but a social consensus for what you do.
A great way to do that is keep things as simple as you can. Good vs. Evil, while not exactly the terms I’d put it in, is a good way of building a consensus for this war. Now Clinton, on the other hand, was not a great consensus builder. Everyone can go on for days on this thread about the bad bad Republicans always havin’ it out for Ol’ Bill. Fact of the matter still remains, Bill was not a great consensus builder. Having said this, at this point, 6:54 Central Daylight Savings Time, Oct. 24, 2001, I’d say Bush. I reserve the right to change my opinion at anytime. Bush is fortunate to have have a halo effect given to Presidents in times of National Crisis. We are only a month in a half into this, though, and he needs to maintain the consensus for this action, as well as show some results. Times of National crisis make or break Presidents. It is true that Great Presidents have shown brightly during times of National need such as this. Others have failed miserably (Hoover, both Johnsons, to a lesser extent Nixon, Carter) We will not know until this is all over if Bush is worth his salt.
My fear is both (and Gore as well if anyone cares to include him) would fail miserably. The worst is yet to come in this mess. More Americans will probably die, and keeping the Middle East from erupting into a big ugly mess is going to be a challenge. It would tale one hell of a great man (or woman) to navigate this minefield.
And to all the Powell lovers: I used to be in that camp, but I find myself falling out of it more and more by the day. Not one single hard reason I can offer you, just a general feeling that he isn’t pulling his weight.
Didn’t Jack Ryan already pull us through this once?
One more thing, if anyone wants a good read on factors that differentiate Great Presidents from the also rans, check out Hail To the Chief by Robert Dallek. He makes a few remarks on Clinton, but those few remarks are based on incomplete info, as it has a copywrite of 1996.