Daily Archives: 07-Jun-04

By The Numbers

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The hagiography being written (presumably with an eye to sainthood and a spot on Rushmore, as well as his name on everything that will sit still and some things that won’t) claims the dearly departed had the highest approval ratings and was the most beloved president of modern times.’

Facts: The highest approval ratings recorded by the Gallup organization:

Ronald Reagan: 68%

Bill Clinton: 71%

Total term average approval ratings recorded by the Gallup organization:

Ronald Reagan: 53%

Bill Clinton: 55%

Final approval ratings recorded by the Gallup organization in the final weeks of their administrations:

Ronald Reagan:
21-Oct-88: 51%
11-Nov-88: 57%
27-Dec-88: 63%

Bill Clinton:
15-Dec-00: 66%
5-Jan-01: 65%
10-Jan-01: 66%

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

‘Facts are stupid things.’

66 For The Gipper

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He’s gone; I’m sorry I voted for him, but admire his commitment to public service; my extreme sympathies to Nancy (and every other family who has to deal with Alzheimer’s like my family did); and sure, he was likable and funny and a good story teller and all, but get a grip people, separate the person from the president and look at what that president did.

« David Corn summed it all up for us » way back in ‘98:

• The firing of the air traffic controllers
• Winnable nuclear war
• Recallable nuclear missiles
• Trees that cause pollution
• Elliott Abrams lying to Congress
• Ketchup as a vegetable
• Colluding with Guatemalan thugs
• Pardons for F.B.I. lawbreakers
• Voodoo economics
• Budget deficits
• Toasts to Ferdinand Marcos
• Public housing cutbacks
• Redbaiting the nuclear freeze movement
• James Watt
• Getting cozy with Argentine fascist generals
• Tax credits for segregated schools
• Disinformation campaigns
• ‘Homeless by choice’
• Manuel Noriega
• Falling wages
• The HUD scandal
• Air raids on Libya
• ‘Constructive engagement’ with apartheid South Africa
• United States Information Agency blacklists of liberal speakers
• Attacks on OSHA and workplace safety
• The invasion of Grenada
• Assassination manuals
• Nancy’s astrologer
• Drug tests
• Lie detector tests
• Fawn Hall
• Female appointees (8 percent)
• Mining harbors
• The S&L scandal
• 239 dead U.S. troops in Beirut
• Al Haig “in control’
• Silence on AIDS
• Food-stamp reductions
• Debategate
• White House shredding
• Jonas Savimbi
• Tax cuts for the rich
• ‘Mistakes were made.’
• Michael Deaver’s conviction for influence peddling
• Lyn Nofziger’s conviction for influence peddling
• Caspar Weinberger’s five-count indictment
• Ed Meese (‘You don’t have many suspects who are innocent of a crime’)
• Donald Regan (women don’t ‘understand throw-weights’)
• Education cuts
• Massacres in El Salvador.
• ‘The bombing begins in five minutes’
• $640 Pentagon toilet seats
• African-American judicial appointees (1.9 percent)
• Reader’s Digest
• C.I.A.-sponsored car-bombing in Lebanon (more than eighty civilians killed)
• 200 officials accused of wrongdoing
• William Casey
• Iran/contra.
• ‘Facts are stupid things’
• Three-by-five cards
• The MX missile
• Bitburg
• S.D.I.
• Robert Bork
• Naps
• Teflon