Politics as usual

I saw an article on CNN's website that made me curious about how accurate the concept of approval ratings are, as an indicator of the job a president is doing.

Let me begin by saying, I am not a big Bush fan. I don't like his stances on open borders, nor do I care for his crony promotion. I don't recall really liking a president since Reagan, and I voted for Anderson. Reagan just had a way of making you feel good for being an American. As a Libertarian, I have little interest in partisan bickering, and I don't see anything particularly admirable in either party.

So, I am wondering how much of this is press driven... I can't recall since the day he was elected, hearing anything nice about him from the press, am I being colored by what I hear? Am I losing my ability to judge aside from the media? Gosh, I sure hope not.

This is what tickled my imagination:

-Truman: 22% mid-February, 1952

-Eisenhower: 49% mid-July, 1960

-Kennedy: 56% mid-September, 1963

-Johnson: 35% early August, 1968

-Nixon: 24% mid-July, 1974, and early August, 1974

-Ford: 37% early January, 1975, and late March, 1975

-Carter: 28% late June, 1979

-Reagan: 35% late January, 1983

-George H.W. Bush: 29% late July, 1992

-Clinton: 37% early June, 1993

-George W. Bush: 37%* mid-November, 2005

* to date

Source: Gallup polls, 1952-1991; CNN/USA Today/Gallup polls, 1992-present.

Truman? Mr. "The buck stops here?" A president universally lauded as being great had at one time in his presidency, a 22% approval rating. I guess that sort of explains Adlai Stevenson's bid with the endorsement of Truman. How much did this disapproval have to do with his firing of Douglas MacArthur over strategic disagreements? How much of it was to do with McCarthy's accusations? With his ending segregation in the military? I sure don't know, I wasn't there.

I guess what these ratings to show, is that you just don't know how what you are doing as president, is going to look, 20, 40, 60 years from now.

No agenda here. Just asking the question.