I watched MSNBC this weekend for no other reason than my wife really wasn’t able to watch Bill O’Reilly. I’m not sure how she came to the conclusion MSNBC was less offensive, but we wound up there anyway. Anyways, they were harping incessantly on the latest presidential approval rating which had Bush at 28%. And repeatedly mentioned the fact this was the lowest in a generation. And, because of that “fact”, what the Republicans and others were doing in response to that “fact”. Well, we need to take that “fact” with a grain of salt. Namely, something called “perspective”. Let’s look closer, shall we?

First of all, MSNBC very liberally uses the term “generation”. Now, according to most definitions, a generation is about 30 years. I’m gonna argue that due to longer life expectancies and people putting off kids longer, let’s make it 35 years ( that also tosses in the most unpopular presidents of my lifetime ). This is how they all stack up at their lowest:

• Ford, 37%
• Clinton, 36%
• Reagan, 35%
• GHW Bush, 29%
• GW Bush, 28%
• Carter, 28%
• Nixon, 23%

That’s right folks, in our “generation”, two other presidents were more unpopular than Bush is right now. More importantly, according to MSNBC, since this is such a critical issue, it must mean Gerald Ford was the greatest president of our lifetime. Of course, it still didn’t get him re-elected.

Now, what I really don’t like is how they are skewering historical perspective by defining presidencies as being a “generation”. Presidents normally serve at the very least four years. More often than not, eight years. It’s possible, by MSNBC’s definition, to have four presidents in a person’s “generation”. That’s not much of a comparison considering these polls have only existed since Franklin Roosevelt in any shape at all. When looking at the big picture and putting a president’s all time low in true perspective, this is how things look:

• Kennedy, 56
• Eisenhower, 48
• Roosevelt, 48
• Ford, 37
• Clinton, 36
• Reagan, 35
• Johnson, 35
• Bush (G.H.W.), 29
• Bush (G.W.), 28
• Carter, 28
• Nixon, 23
• Truman, 22

Low, but not the lowest. Kennedy of course deserves an asterisk because he was still in his first term and falling fast. The ONLY one in the bottom five that was not in their second term was Carter.

Now, the other side of that equation.

• Bush (G.W.), 92
• Bush (G.H.W.), 89
• Truman, 87
• Roosevelt, 84
• Kennedy, 80
• Johnson, 80
• Eisenhower, 79
• Carter, 75
• Ford, 74
• Clinton, 73
• Reagan, 68
• Nixon, 67

Dubya at one point was the most approved president of all time. “All-time” being of course the very limited period of time this “stat” has been kept.

Polls are meaningless in the universe of politics. At one point 93% of the US thought Bush was doing a good job while the economy was tanking and we were being attacked by terrorists sponsored by foreign countries. We have relative peace within our homeland and the economy is prospering and that same president’s “approval” tanks to 28%.

All these polls show is people get tired of a president over time. That’s it.

To put it in its proper perspective, compare it to the “approval” of Congress during the same time. People generally disapprove a lot more than they ever approve of politics. Period. Only during crisis do most people look to politicians for leadership and “approval”. Other than that, historically it appears, about 70% of the people polled just disapprove of about anything. I think that’s about normal historically.

Tags: bias, dwight-eisenhower, franklin-roosevelt, george-bush, george-hw-bush, harry-truman, jimmy carter, john-f-kennedy, lyndon-johnson, msnbc, Polls, presidential-approval, richard-nixon, ronald-reagan, The Media