The Patriot Post® · Poll Results & Other Matters

By Burt Prelutsky ·
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/27914-poll-results-and-other-matters-2014-08-04

When Italian composer and violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini (1784-1840) performed on the concert stage, people were so unprepared to hear the half-notes and exotic harmonics at which he excelled, they often assumed that he had sold his soul to the Devil. When I see what Obama is doing day after day to destroy America and the Constitution, I find myself thinking the same thing about him.

It’s not often we get to see in a Democratic administration what we can probably expect from a Republican one. In this case, I’m referring to Obama’s foreign policy, which seems to reflect what Rand Paul would do if he were in the Oval Office. Sen. Paul might balk at being compared to the man he would like to replace, but so far as I can tell he is an isolationist who subscribes to the belief that we should not concern ourselves unduly with what Russia, North Korea, China or Islam, are up to until the day comes when, say, Kentucky is invaded or Louisville is nuked.

An oddity of the current administration is that they are constantly prattling on about the evils of income inequality, and yet Obama is forever going hat-in-hand to beg wealthy liberals to kick in $30,000 for a fund-raising dinner. Even more telling is the fact that whereas the average CEO in 2009 was making roughly 181 times as much as the average employee at his company, in 2014, the differential had increased to 270 times as much.

Call me a skeptic, but surely I’m not the only person who has begun asking how all those impoverished Central Americans were able to pony up $8,000 to pay a coyote to bring their kid to the Texas border. I don’t know very many people here in the States that could manage to come up with that much cash, but we’re expected to believe that thousands of Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans, managed it. If you’re one of those who believe it, once you’re done clapping in order to keep Tinkerbell alive, you’re invited to pull my other finger.

Doesn’t it seem far more likely that the Democrats somehow funded the exodus so that they could use the border crisis to push for so-called comprehensive immigration legislation?

It occurs to me that in no other business would Fox have no competition in the cable news business. I’m not referring to liberal competitors like CNN and MSNBC, but to a rival conservative network. When wealthy conservatives see how much money Rupert Murdoch is raking in, what’s keeping them from launching their own cable networks?

According to Roger Ailes, it only cost Murdoch $100 million to start up Fox; that’s a drop in the bucket for the likes of Sheldon Adelson, Donald Trump and the Koch brothers. Hell, Tom Steyer, the billionaire airhead, has pledged $100 million to help elect Democrats who merely have to pretend they share his childlike belief in the fairytale known as global warming.

Speaking for myself, I would be ready and eager to welcome a conservative network where I didn’t have to waste precious time every day listening to the likes of Alan Colmes, Bob Beckel, Geraldo Rivera, Kirsten Powers and Juan Williams.

In short, why would wealthy Republicans prefer whining about the media stifling the conservative message instead of producing megaphones of their own? Finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the results of my recent poll dealing with the three best and the three worst presidents since 1945.

Considering my readership, it’s probably not too shocking that Reagan is the only one of the dozen presidents not to be mentioned as among the worst on even a single one of the 324 ballots cast. As you would imagine, he was the only one of the dozen to be mentioned among the Best on every ballot. Conversely, Barack Obama was left off only one of the ballots in the competition to determine the Worst.

You may notice that the votes in the two categories don’t always add up to 324. That’s because in some cases, people only voted for one or two presidents in each category. In many cases, people simply voted for Reagan or Obama and left off all the others. Personally, I was surprised that Nixon received so many votes for both Best and Worst, but he was probably the most controversial president back in the day, and apparently he remains so 40 years later.

The first number indicates the total votes each president received. The following numbers indicate first, second and third place votes.

THE WORST PRESIDENT SINCE THE END OF WWII

Obama (323; 315; 8; 0)
Carter (257; 2; 198; 57)
LBJ (196; 6; 51; 139)
Clinton (55; 0; 12; 43)
Nixon (23; 0; 3; 20)
George W. Bush (10; 0; 3; 7)
Ford (9; 0; 0; 9)
George H.W. Bush (4; 0; 0; 4)
JFK (3; 0; 0; 3)
Eisenhower (2; 0; 0; 2)
Truman (2; 0; 0; 2)

THE BEST PRESIDENT SINCE THE END OF WORLD WAR 11

Reagan (195; 186; 6; 3)
Eisenhower (97; 6; 63; 28)
Truman (79; 9; 40; 30)
Nixon (17; 1; 5; 11)
George W. Bush (15; 0; 6; 9)
JFK (12; 0; 2; 10)
Ford (9; 0; 0; 9)
George H.W. Bush (4; 0; 1; 3)
Clinton (1; 0; 1; 0)

I’m sorry I couldn’t thank each of you personally for taking part in the poll, but I do appreciate it. And, best of all, there are now 324 people who can never again insist that because they’ve never been polled, it proves that polls must all be phony.