About George.W.Bush
Bush began his presidency with approval ratings near 50%.[160] Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Bush gained an approval rating of greater than 85%, maintaining 80–90% approval for four months after the attacks. Since then, his approval ratings and approval of his handling of domestic and foreign policy issues have steadily dropped. Bush has received heavy criticism for his handling of the Iraq War, his response to Hurricane Katrina, and to the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, NSA warrantless surveillance of terrorists or individuals suspected of involvement with terrorist groups, Scooter Libby/Plamegate, and Guantanamo Bay detainment camp controversies.[161]
A March 13, 2008 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reported that 53% of Americans—a slim majority—believe that "the U.S. will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals" in Iraq.[162] That figure is up from 42 percent in September 2007 and the highest it has been since 2006.[162]
In May 2004, Gallup reported that 89% of the Republican electorate approved of Bush.[163] This support has since waned, however, due mostly to a minority of Republicans' frustration with him on issues of spending, illegal immigration, and Middle Eastern affairs.[164] Within the United States Military, the president was strongly supported in the 2004 presidential elections.[165] When compared with Democratic challenger John Kerry, 73% of military personnel said that they would vote for Bush, versus 18% for Kerry.[165] According to Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist who has studied the political leanings of the U.S. military, members of the armed services supported Bush because they found him more likely to prosecute the War in Iraq than Kerry.[165]
Bush's approval rating has been below the 50% mark in AP-Ipsos polling since December 2004.[166] Polls conducted in 2006 showed an average of 37% approval ratings for Bush;[167] the lowest for any second term president in this point of term since Harry S. Truman in March 1951, when his approval rating was 28%,[166][168] which contributed to what Bush called the "thumping" of the Republican Party in the 2006 mid-term elections.[169] Throughout 2007, Bush's approval rating hovered in the mid-thirties percentile,[170] although in a Reuters poll of October 17, 2007, Bush received a lower approval rating of 24%,[171] the lowest point of his presidency.[172] In response to the numbers, during a February 10, 2008 interview on Fox News Sunday Bush stated, "I frankly don't give a damn about the polls".[173] By April 2008, Bush's disapproval ratings were the highest ever recorded in the 70-year history of the Gallup poll for any president, with 69% of those polled disapproving of the job Bush was doing as president and 28% approving.[174] In September 2008, Bush's approval rating ranges from 19%[175] to 34% in polls performed by different agencies.[176]
In 2006, 744 professional historians surveyed by Siena College regarded Bush's presidency as follows: Great: 2%; Near Great: 5%; Average: 11%; Below Average: 24%; Failure: 58%.[177] Thomas Kelly, professor emeritus of American studies at Siena College, said that "In this case, current public opinion polls actually seem to cut the President more slack than the experts do."[177] Similar outcomes were retrieved by two informal surveys done by the History News Network in 2004[178] and 2008.[179] The historian who organized the HNN polls said of the results: "It is in no sense a scientific sample of historians. The participants are self-selected, although participation was open to all historians. Among those who responded are several of the nation’s most respected historians, including Pulitzer and Bancroft Prize winners."[179] In response to the "worst president" accusations,[180][181] Bush said, "to assume that historians can figure out the effect of the Bush administration before the Bush administration has ended is... in my mind... not an accurate reflection upon how history works."[173]
Calls for Bush's impeachment have been made, though most polls have shown a plurality of Americans do not support impeachment.[182] The reasoning behind impeachment usually centers on the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy,[183] the Bush administration's justification for the war in Iraq,[184] and alleged violations of the Geneva Conventions.[185] Representative Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat from Ohio, introduced 35 articles of impeachment on the floor of the House of Representatives against President Bush on June 9, 2008, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that impeachment is "off the table".[186]
Bush's intellectual capacity has been satirized by the media,[187] comedians, and other politicians.[188] Detractors tended to cite linguistic errors made by Bush during his public speeches, which are colloquially termed as Bushisms.[189] Some publications refer to Bush as "The worst president ever."
[190][191][192][193][194]
In 2000 and again in 2004, Time magazine named George W. Bush as its Person of the Year, a title awarded to someone who the editors believe "for better or for worse, … has done the most to influence the events of the year."[195]
approve disapprove unsure Gallup/USA Today Bush public opinion polling from February 2001 to October 2008. Blue denotes approve, red disapprove, and green unsure. Large increases in approval followed the September 11 attacks, the beginning of the 2003 Iraq conflict, and the capture of Saddam Hussein.
About Barrack Obama
As Obama is yet to prove his mettle lets understand what he has said and done while his campaigning for US Presedential candidate 2008 so that we may remind him later of what he had promised.
On February 10, 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois.[95][96] The choice of the announcement site was symbolic because it was also where Abraham Lincoln delivered his historic "House Divided" speech in 1858.[97] Throughout the campaign, Obama emphasized the issues of rapidly ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence, and providing universal health care, at one point identifying these as his top three priorities.[98]
Obama's campaign raised $58 million during the first half of 2007, of which donations of less than $200, classified as "small donations" by campaign laws, accounted for $16.4 million. The $58 million set the record for fundraising by a presidential campaign in the first six months of the calendar year before the election.[99] The magnitude of the small donation portion was outstanding from both the absolute and relative perspectives.[100] In January 2008, his campaign set another fundraising record with $36.8 million, the most ever raised in one month by a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries.[101]
Among the January 2008 DNC-sanctioned state contests, Obama tied with Hillary Clinton for delegates in the New Hampshire primary and won more delegates than Clinton in the Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina elections and caucuses. On Super Tuesday, he emerged with 20 more delegates than Clinton.[102] He again broke fundraising records in the first two months of 2008, raising over $90 million for his primary to Clinton's $45 million.[103] After Super Tuesday, Obama won the eleven remaining February primaries and caucuses.[104] Obama and Clinton split delegates and states nearly equally in the March 4 contests of Vermont, Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island; Obama closed the month by winning Wyoming and Mississippi.[105]
In March 2008, a controversy broke out concerning Obama's former pastor of twenty years, Jeremiah Wright,[106] after ABC News broadcast clips of his racially and politically charged sermons.[106][107] Initially, Obama responded by defending Wright's wider role in Chicago's African-American community,[108] but condemned his remarks and ended Wright's relationship with the campaign.[109] During the controversy, Obama delivered a speech entitled "A More Perfect Union"[110] that addressed issues of race. Obama subsequently resigned from Trinity United Church of Christ "to avoid the impression that he endorsed the entire range of opinions expressed at that church."[111][112][113]
During April, May, and June, Obama won the North Carolina, Oregon, and Montana primaries and remained ahead in the count of pledged delegates, while Clinton won the Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Puerto Rico, and South Dakota primaries. During the period, Obama received endorsements from more superdelegates than did Clinton.[114] On May 31, the Democratic National Committee agreed to seat all of the Michigan and Florida delegates at the national convention, each with a half-vote, narrowing Obama's delegate lead while increasing the delegate count needed to win.[115] On June 3, with all states counted, Obama passed the threshold to become the presumptive nominee.[116][117] On that day, he gave a victory speech in St. Paul, Minnesota. Clinton suspended her campaign and endorsed him on June 7.[118] From that point on, he campaigned for the general election race against Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee.
On June 19, Obama became the first major-party presidential candidate to turn down public financing in the general election since the system was created in 1976, reversing his earlier intention to accept it.[119]
On August 23, 2008, Obama selected Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate.[120] At the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, Obama's former rival Hillary Clinton gave a speech strongly supporting Obama's candidacy and later called for Obama to be nominated by acclamation as the Democratic presidential candidate.[121][122] Then, on August 28, Obama delivered a speech to the 84,000 supporters in Denver. During the speech, which was viewed by over 38 million people worldwide, he accepted his party's nomination and presented his policy goals.[123][124]
After McCain was nominated as the Republican presidential candidate, polls indicated that he had closed the gap with Obama. There were three presidential debates between Obama and McCain in September and October 2008.[125][126]
After the debates, Obama pulled ahead in national polls. On November 2, 2008, Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, died from cancer at the age of 86. Obama learned of his grandmother's death on November 3, one day before the election.[127][128]
On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama defeated John McCain and became the first African American to be elected President of the United States.[129][130] In his victory speech, delivered before a crowd of hundreds of thousands of his supporters in Chicago, Obama proclaimed that "change has come to America."[131] Obama is the first U.S. President born outside the continental United States.
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