Public image of George W. Bush
, the 43rd president of the United States, has elicited a variety of public perceptions regarding his policies, personality and performance as a head of state. In the United States and elsewhere, journalists, polling organizations and others have documented the expression of an evolving array of opinions of President Bush. Time magazine named Bush as its Person of the Year for 2000 and 2004, citing him as the most influential person during these two years.
The approval ratings of Bush ranged from a record high to a record low. Bush began his presidency with ratings near 60%. In the time of national crisis following the September 11 attacks, polls showed approval ratings greater than 85%, peaking in at 92%, as well as a steady 80–90% approval for about four months after the attacks. Afterward, his ratings steadily declined as the economy suffered and the Iraq War initiated by his administration continued. By early 2006, his average rating was near 40%, and in July 2008, a poll indicated a low of 22%.
Background
At the beginning of his first term, Bush's reputation suffered due to his narrow victory in Florida and the attendant controversy surrounding his electoral college victory, which included accusations of vote suppression and tampering. While routinely criticized by Democrats, Bush was also sometimes criticized by Republicans. A number of American celebrities and sports and media personalities engaged in heated criticism of Bush.Bush was also subject to criticism in the international community for his foreign policy. Street protests sometimes occurred during Bush's diplomatic visits to other countries. His policies were the subject of heated criticism in the 2002 elections in Germany and the 2006 elections in Canada.
Support among conservatives
Bush has enjoyed strong support among Republicans and Americans holding conservative views, and for the 2004 election, 95–98% of the Republican electorate approved of and voted for Bush, a figure exceeding the approval of Ronald Reagan. This support waned, however, due mostly to Republicans' growing frustration with Bush on the issues of spending and illegal immigration. Some Republicans even began criticizing Bush on his policies in Iraq, Iran, and the Palestinian territories.Personal image
Country image
Raised in West Texas, Bush's accent, vacations on his Texas ranch, and penchant for country metaphors contribute to his folksy, American cowboy image. "I think people look at him and think John Wayne", says Piers Morgan, editor of the British Daily Mirror. It has been suggested that Bush's accent was a deliberate and active choice, as a way of distinguishing himself from his family's traditionally wealthy, intellectual, Northeastern image, and anchoring himself to his Texas roots. Both supporters and detractors have pointed to his country persona as reasons for their support or criticism.Vision
In contrast to his father, George H. W. Bush, who was perceived as having troubles with an overarching unifying theme, George W. Bush embraced larger visions and was seen as a man of larger ideas and associated huge risks.Intellectual capacity
Bush's intellectual capacities were questioned by the media which speculated about his IQ.A hoax report claiming Bush had the lowest IQ of any American President of the last 50 years circulated in 2001.
Though no official IQ test score for Bush has been found, the score he received on his SAT during his final year of preparatory school at the exclusive Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, is known. He scored 1206. The score that Bush received on his qualifying test for the military suggests that his IQ was in the mid-120s, placing him in the 95th percentile of the population for intelligence. An article published in the journal Political Psychology estimated Bush's IQ at 125. The same study estimated the IQ of Bush's predecessor Bill Clinton at 149. The study's director noted that "Bush may be 'much smarter' than the findings imply". A lecturer in American politics at
Warwick University said: "A major part of public persona, to some extent, I think deliberately, is that he is not an intellectual. But he went to Yale, he has had an exclusive upbringing and he is by no means a dimwit."
Bush's detractors tended to focus on various linguistic errors made by him during his public speeches, colloquially known as Bushisms. His mispronunciation of certain words was ridiculed in the media and in popular culture. Even as early as the 2000 presidential debates, it was the subject of a Saturday Night Live sketch. Perhaps his most famous nonstandard pronunciation is that of nuclear, pronouncing it instead of , although he is not the only American president to have done this. Merriam-Webster lists this as a variant but nonstandard pronunciation of nuclear.
Domestic perception of Bush
Bush began his presidency with approval ratings near 50%. Following the September 11 attacks, Bush held approval ratings of greater than 85%, among the highest for any President. Since then, his approval ratings and approval of his handling of domestic, economic, and foreign policy issues steadily declined, and despite consistent efforts to do so, President Bush and his administration were unable to rally public support for the last three years, with each year seeing a steady decline in the Administration's support level to the point of Bush eventually dropping to a 19% approval rating and 77% disapproval rating, both records for a sitting president.In 2002, Bush had the highest approval rating of any president during a midterm congressional election since Dwight D. Eisenhower. In an unusual deviation from the historical trend of midterm elections, the Republican Party regained control of the Senate and added to its majority in the House of Representatives. Typically, the President's party loses congressional seats in the midterm elections; 2002 marked only the third midterm election since the Civil War that the party in control of the White House gained seats in both houses of Congress.
In 2003, Bush's approval spiked upward at the time of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in February. The upward trend continued through the invasion of Iraq in March. By late 2003, when presidential opponents began their campaigns in earnest, his approval numbers were in the low to middle 50s. Most polls tied the decline to growing concern over the US-led occupation of Iraq and a slow recovery from the 2001 recession. Polls of May 2004 showed anywhere from a 53% to a 46% approval rating.
In April 2006, the president's approval continued to decline. Four states continue to maintain a positive approval rating: Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Nebraska. His disapproval rating in traditionally red states had risen, with higher than 60% of voters disapproving in Ohio, Florida, Arkansas, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Virginia, Missouri, and Iowa. Even in his conservative-spun home state of Texas, disapproval reached 51 percent. His disapproval rating in several American states had reached an all-time high, with more than 70% disapproving in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Delaware, Vermont, and New York. His highest approval rating stood at 55% in Utah, and his lowest, 24%, in Rhode Island.
In polls conducted between August 7 and 16, 2006, Bush's average approval rating was 37.0%, and his average disapproval rating was 57.3%.
A poll taken in mid September 2006 indicated that 48 percent of Americans believed the war with Iraq has made the US less safe, while 41 percent believed the war has made the US safer from terrorism. Another poll shows that a majority of Americans, by a margin of 61 to 35 percent, believe that the United States is not better off because of Bush's policies.
At the conclusion of 2006, an AP-AOL News telephone poll of 1,004 adults found Bush to be both the "top villain" and "top hero" of the year. Bush was followed in the "villain" poll by Osama bin Laden, who took in 8 percent to Bush's 25 percent; Saddam Hussein ; and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the hero poll, Bush's 13 percent was followed by: Soldiers/troops in Iraq, Jesus Christ, Barack Obama, and Oprah Winfrey.
Polls conducted after Bush's troop surge strategy was announced in January 2007 showed his approval rating had dropped to approximately 32%.
On February 13, 2008, an average of major polls indicated that Bush's approval rating stood at 33.3%. The same average showed, for polls issued during the period from September 5 to 16, 2008, that Bush's approval rating was 31.9%, and his disapproval rating was 64.8%.
A poll by Rasmussen Reports on December 10, 2005, asked, "Should President Bush be impeached and removed from office?" 32% said "yes", and 58% said "no". Earlier polls asked conditional versions of the impeachment question. For example, Zogby International on November 2, 2005, asked whether respondents agreed with the statement, "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment." Americans agreed with this, 53% to 42%. A poll by Newsweek on October 19, 2006, revealed that 51% of respondents believed that the impeachment of Bush should be a priority. An August 2008 poll found that 41% of Americans thought that Bush is the worst President in United States history, while 50% disagreed.
Bush's critics have questioned his leadership skills regarding some events. One occasion was on the moment of the September 11 World Trade Center attacks: after being told by Chief of Staff Andrew Card that the US was "under attack", Bush continued with a reading lesson with elementary school children for seven minutes. Democratic 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry cited Bush's lack of swift action, calling into question the incumbent's leadership capabilities, and concluding: "Americans want to know that the person they choose as president has all the skills and ability, all of the mental toughness, all of the gut instinct necessary to be a strong commander in chief."
The 9/11 Commission later released a summary of Bush's closed-door testimony, which stated that Bush's "instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis". It went on to say "The President felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening." This situation was featured prominently in Michael Moore's 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.
Twice, in late 2001 and early 2002, Bush stated that before entering the classroom he had seen on a television set the first plane hit the World Trade Center, and that he had assumed it was an accident. This was impossible, as no televised footage of the first plane crashing into the tower was broadcast until the afternoon of that day. The White House explained his remarks as "a mistaken recollection".