Presidential Unpopularity Quotes
The President tends to keep increasing the number of Americans who are opposed to his policies, or felt he did not live up to his promises, or has been sufficiently negatively trashed by his opposition that his negatives are driven up and positives, down. The only exception to this is President William Clinton, who ironically is the only President who was impeached since Andrew Johnson, a terrible President. However, the pettiness and partisanship of the impeachment attack on Clinton caused the Senate to acquit him where the Republicans who controlled the Senate could not even muster a majority, much less the two-thirds necessary, for conviction. Meanwhile, with all the distractions of impeachment, Clinton managed the strongest economy in American history, not only balanced the budget, but created a surplus for the first time in modern history. So Clinton left office, a hero and his popularity was sustained after his presidency as George W. Bush, following a new Republican ideology, squandered the surplus, created very few jobs, and then crashed the world economy triggering the Great Recession of 2008. He left the Presidency as one of the more unpopular Presidents in history. By contrast, Clinton’s accomplishments were even more appreciated as Bush was his foil.
The administration of George W. Bush was the most unpopular in American history amongst most of the countries of the world. By the end of his second term, Bush himself was the most unpopular President in America since polls were taken to measure it. However, when Barack Obama went to Berlin, as a senator and presidential candidate he was very warmly received with a crowd of over 200,000 Germans turning out in Berlin to hear his speech.
Taken from the Nixon Tapes of June 14, 1971. This quotation illustrates the mental set of the Nixon White House where the President must be seen as infallible and obeyed without much questioning. After Nixon, that view did not surface again in American politics until the George W. Bush Presidency. The Federal Courts were not very sympathetic to the Haldeman assertion and allowed the publication.
