Gallup: George Bush More Hated Than Nixon

A quick look at the other number, the Gallup disapproval rating, in historical context.

I found I couldn't write this without at least one burst of profanity.

The new Gallup poll is out, and it's already been diaried that George Bush has swooshed past his dad on the way into the approval rating toilet. George the First held the previous Bush Family Stink-o-rama rating, 29%, but his enterprising scion George the Second has gone one better, tying Carter-during-the-energy-crisis's 28%. And, given the state of the economy, the idiocy of the Iraq war, the Constitutional crises, and the rest of George's endearing characteristics, there's no reason to believe he'll stop there.

You knew all that already. What I wanted to mention was the other number, the disapproval rating. Why? Because if you don't approve of a guy, you might be at least neutral. It's the difference between "don't like" and "actively dislike."

So what is George the Second's "actively dislike" number? It's 67%.

Well, return with me now to the days of Watergate. Richard SOB Nixon is in the midst of the nation's worst Constitutional battles since the ones we should be having now if Congress would only step up to the plate, John Dean has blown the whistle, Alexander Butterfield has testified that Nixon bugged his own office and that there were Dictaphone belts, we've learned what a nutbar G. Gordon Liddy is, we've learned the phrase "eighteen-and-a-half minute gap", the Supreme Court had ruled that Nixon's "national security" dodge was just a dodge, and Nixon is about as unpopular as a President can get, a Republican delegation has just knocked on his door and told him that they were through sticking up for him, it's August 1974, the month Nixon would quit --

-- and his Gallup disapproval rating is 66%.

Now, let that sink in a moment.

Richard SOB Nixon, who previously held the record for most-hated President, at the very moment where he is most hated, the very symbol of mass political revulsion at an elected official, beady eyes and flopsweat and all.

Yet George the Second is now even more hated than that.

Congratulations, GOP! You actually found a bigger turkey than Richard Nixon!

Now get the fuck out of the White House.