Interesting Poll Results

[Guest TheMikeSC]

According to an ABCNews poll, blacks---by a healthy margin---view Bill Clinton as being the greatest President ever.

 

Yes, you read that correctly.

 

Bill Clinton, to black Americans, is the greatest President ever.

 

I'll let that sink in for a moment.

 

Not Lincoln.

 

Not FDR.

 

Not JFK (who always gets high marks, even though he didn't do much)

 

But, Bill Friggin' Clinton.

 

This is not because I personally find Clinton to be an utterly loathsome individual and a piss-poor President. This is a legitimate question here:

 

Am I the only one who finds these results to be more than moderately disturbing? Did the pollsters poll 12 year old kids or people with severe dementia--or has black America completely lost any ability to think rationally?

 

Let's just look at this for a moment.

 

Lincoln

Freed the Slaves

Defeated the Confederacy

Led the Nation during our greatest internal conflict.

 

Clinton

Banged chunky interns in the Oval Office

 

Can ANYBODY explain how any SANE or RATIONAL person---white or black---could come to the conclusion that Clinton was a better President than Lincoln?

                         -=Mike

 

...Suddenly worried that people ARE dumber than I once thought

[Guest J*ingus]

Mike, you're always about as hard on Clinton as bps21 is on Triple H.  

 

Lincoln:

 

-Freed the slaves, yeah.  But the Emancipation Proclamation only affected the Confederacy, not the Union.  And when he wrote it, he had no power to enforce it.  

 

-Was smart enough after 1863 to put the right generals in place to defeat the Confederacy.  Hired sone startlingly incompetent generals prior to that.  

 

-Was also rumored to have cheated on his wife, and suffered from bouts of serious depression.  

 

has black America completely lost any ability to think rationally?

 

Firstly, don't say "black America" as if they were one giant monolithic society.  They're all individuals, with personalities just as diverse as anyone else's.  

 

Secondly, let me pose a question to everyone on this board: when a majority of people disagree with your minority opinion, why do so many of you automatically assume that you're right, and the rest of the world has gone mad?

[Guest KoR Fungus]

Secondly, let me pose a question to everyone on this board: when a majority of people disagree with your minority opinion, why do so many of you automatically assume that you're right, and the rest of the world has gone mad?

 

That's a reasonably good point, but sometimes you *are* right and the majority of the world *has* gone mad.  I don't want to sound too cynical, but the vast majority of the people in this world are really stupid, and thus whether the majority of them agree on something or not means absolutely nothing.  For example, a USA Today poll taken near the September 11th attacks showed that 53% of the people polled thought that all Arabs, US citizens or not, should be required to have a special type of ID that allows people to know that they are Arabs.  Does that mean that this is right?  No, it means that the majority of Americans are idiots who's knee jerk reaction to the terrorist attacks is to immediately start discriminating against whomever is convenient.  The fact that a lot of people believe a really stupid thing doesn't inherently make the thing any less stupid.

 

And that is most definitely the case here.  Pointing out some flaws in regards to Lincoln doesn't change the fact that it's *really stupid* to think that Bill Clinton is the best President of *all time*.  Not that Bill Clinton was a good President, not that he did good things for the country, but that he was the best President of *all time*.  There is just no logical argument whatsoever that can be made to support this position, regardless of your political views (and that's coming from a relative liberal that dislikes Bush).  The black community, many of whom definitely don't think independently when it comes to political issues, are total sheep when it comes to blindly supporting democrats.  I probably agree with them on most issues, but still, this is pretty pathetic.

[Guest RhynoesRUs]

Polls don't mean anything except that they reflect the opinions of the people who took the poll.  No matter what you want to prove, if you poll the right people, you'll find support for your opinion.  I saw another poll on TV that said that like 23% of those polled said Abe Lincoln was the "best prez EVER" followed by George W. at 18%.  I find this equally stupid, George W. hasn't even been in office half a term yet, and I don't see anything to support him even being mentioned as "best EVER", unless you are Boeing or Enron.  People are not only stupid in general, they have very short attention spans.  Very few have any concept of reality outside of thier personal experience in my opinion.  Basically, your poll is meaningless, as are you conclusions that "Bill Clinton, to black Americans, is the greatest President ever."

[Guest TheMikeSC]

Mike, you're always about as hard on Clinton as bps21 is on Triple H.  

 

 

 

Oh, I'm harsher.

 

 

Lincoln:

 

-Freed the slaves, yeah.  But the Emancipation Proclamation only affected the Confederacy, not the Union.  And when he wrote it, he had no power to enforce it.  

 

 

 

True---but he made the first step. And, his act basically killed slavery in the few border states because they couldn't keep it legal when the evil confederacy was "fighting for slavery" (yes, I'm fully aware that the War was about much more than slavery).

 

 

-Was smart enough after 1863 to put the right generals in place to defeat the Confederacy.  Hired sone startlingly incompetent generals prior to that.  

 

 

 

Absolutely. However, his FIRST choice to lead the Union forces told him no. If Lee accepted the job when Lincoln offered it, the Civil War would've been quick, as Lee is, arguably, the greatest military tactician ever produced in this country.

 

 

 

-Was also rumored to have cheated on his wife, and suffered from bouts of serious depression.  

 

 

 

Infidelity doesn't matter to me. Didn't matter to me with Clinton, either.

 

 

Quote  

has black America completely lost any ability to think rationally?

 

 

Firstly, don't say "black America" as if they were one giant monolithic society.  They're all individuals, with personalities just as diverse as anyone else's.  

 

 

 

True.

 

Have the people who took this poll lost the ability to think rationally would have been a better question.

 

 

 

Secondly, let me pose a question to everyone on this board: when a majority of people disagree with your minority opinion, why do so many of you automatically assume that you're right, and the rest of the world has gone mad?

 

 

 

In this case, the people who voted in this poll HAVE gone mad.

 

What on God's earth did Clinton do for blacks? Bush has blacks in higher positions in his cabinet than Clinton did. Clinton did a whole bunch of nothing for blacks, while Lincoln DID have that whole Emancipation Proclamation thing.

                             -=Mike

[Guest TheMikeSC]

Polls don't mean anything except that they reflect the opinions of the people who took the poll.

 

 

No argument. But the fact that they could find ANYBODY who thinks like that is mind-blowing.

 

 

No matter what you want to prove, if you poll the right people, you'll find support for your opinion.  I saw another poll on TV that said that like 23% of those polled said Abe Lincoln was the "best prez EVER" followed by George W. at 18%.  I find this equally stupid, George W. hasn't even been in office half a term yet, and I don't see anything to support him even being mentioned as "best EVER", unless you are Boeing or Enron.

 

 

Bush, again, did nothing for Enron, but you are correct.

 

However, the part of the poll dealing with black Americans was the most baffling. How can a President who freed the slaves be viewed as being not as great as a man who didn't really do anything in eight years?

 

 

People are not only stupid in general, they have very short attention spans.  Very few have any concept of reality outside of thier personal experience in my opinion.  Basically, your poll is meaningless, as are you conclusions that "Bill Clinton, to black Americans, is the greatest President ever."

 

 

It's not MY poll, it's the ABC News poll.

 

I'm basing MY conclusions upon the POLL's conclusion.

                              -=Mike

[Guest Juvydriver]

I always thought polls meant something until I took a statistics class in college.  It was there I found out that I can ask you a question, and regardless of your answer, I can make it mean whatever the hell I want to mean.

 

I wonder if the poll that was taken said, "Of all President's throughout history, which is the greatest?" or if it said, of the following President's, which would you consider the greatest:

 

1:  Bill Clinton

2:  George Bush

3:  Ronald Reagan

4:  Richard Nixon

 

Or something along that line.  

 

I agree that it is disturbing to think, but a lot of it might have to do with how the question was asked.

 

Juvy

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

Actually, this poll result makes perfect sense to me...

 

With the high out-of-wedlock birth rates disturbingly present in just about every race in America, and one of the highest rates being in the African-American category, why wouldn't Bill Clinton be seen as a superhero? Hell, Jesse Jackson probably got a few more PUSH donations after news of his bastard child hit the papers and airwaves.

 

On a totally unrelated note, one night as I was channel surfing I came across this MTV interview session featuring several rappers -- RZA of Wu-Tang, Jay-Z, Wycleff (forgive me if I don't spell these names correctly) -- and they made a remark about the Clinton household. This was during Zippergate and they all agreed that every man needed a Hillary that would allow them to pursue, um, outside  interests.

 

God why do I remember crap like this?

[Guest Macbeth]

Because it proves niggers are stupid?

 

Errrrr... THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!

 

Oh well... life goes on.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Toni Morrison a famous black writer said the reason Black's love Clinton so much is because in their eyes he's the closest they've seen to an actual black president.

[Guest bps "The Truth" 21]

"Mike, you're always about as hard on Clinton as bps21 is on Triple H"

 

How do I come up in threads all the way over here?

[Guest TheMikeSC]

Toni Morrison a famous black writer said the reason Black's love Clinton so much is because in their eyes he's the closest they've seen to an actual black president.

 

 

 

I remember Toni's comment.

 

Another reason I find her so utterly moronic.

                                      -=Mike

 

...Toni "Just Call Me 'Duh'" Morrison

[Guest RhynoesRUs]

Hey Mike, don't take it personal.  I was just making statements in general.  I understand it was an ABCnews poll and not yours, I just meant you had presented it.

[Guest Some Guy]

Little bit of history.

Black people voted Republican, yes Republican, as it was the party of Lincoln, who freed the slaves.  The Emancipation Proc. only did affect the Confederacy, which he had no power over until the north won the damn war.  When that happened he did have power over the south and as such he did free the slaves.  Black people really only started voting Democrat when FDR figured out that he could buy their votes by promising them other people's money.  

I'm a Poli Sci major and have heard black classmates of mine say that they love Clinton because they thought he was the closest thing to a black Prez that we've had and that he truly empathized with their plight.

[Guest Vyce]

Yeah, I heard this on the radio.  It disturbs me immensely that Clinton beat out Lincoln.  Frankly, I liked Millard Fillmore more than I did Clinton.

 

Toni Morrison a famous black writer said the reason Black's love Clinton so much is because in their eyes he's the closest they've seen to an actual black president.

 

The sad thing is that I really believe that there is more truth to this attitude / belief than there is fiction.

[Guest J*ingus]

So why can't we just elect a black president and end that discussion?  For all the social progress that's been made in this country, I find it odd that we've never elected a leader who was not a white man, or that neither of the big parties have ever advanced a black or a woman as a candidate.  Paging Mr. Powell...

[Guest kkktookmybabyaway]

"So why can't we just elect a black president and end that discussion?"

 

Interestingly enough, which "minority" do you think will be the first to reach Commander in Chief?

 

Black, Hispanic, Jew, Woman, etc?

 

Personally, I think Powell will be Bush's VP in 2004. The thinking will go like this. Cheney was there to ease GWB into the job, and now Powell will be a president-in-training for 2008. Been saying it since 2000 and will keep saying it until my theory is disproved. Then I'll go and yap about something else...

[Guest Juvydriver]

I remember talking a to a history teacher in 1990 (or 91) and she said that she would vote for then Joint Chief of Staff Collin Powell for President in 92 if he ran.

 

I think a lot of people would vote for him.

 

Juvy

[Guest Black Lushus]

Clinton

Banged chunky interns in the Oval Office

well isn't that a common missconception that us black guys only like chunky chicks?

[Guest TheMikeSC]

I remember talking a to a history teacher in 1990 (or 91) and she said that she would vote for then Joint Chief of Staff Collin Powell for President in 92 if he ran.

 

I think a lot of people would vote for him.

 

 

 

 

I doubt it.

 

Powell has had the benefit of not having to actually articulate his beliefs, so people just project what they WANT him to support onto him. They ASSUME he supports what they do, but he's never said where he stands on most issues.

 

Once he takes stands, he'll peel off support layer-by-layer.

 

Nothing kills near-universal support quite like taking stands on any issues.

                           -=Mike

[Guest thevertex]

Interestingly enough, which "minority" do you think will be the first to reach Commander in Chief?

 

Black, Hispanic, Jew, Woman, etc?

 

I am pretty sure it will be a Woman. Do the math, half of the USA is women, much higher than the rest.

 

Blacks are unlikely because no one besides inner cities will vote for whackos like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, and no one besides conservatives would vote for someone like JC Watts or Alan Keyes. For a Black to win, they'd need to be a populist who could garner good support from union voters, catholics, independents etc.... i.e. swing voters.

 

Hispanics are a possibility since Bush is in full-on pander mode to them, especially with that insane amnesty plan.

 

I doubt it would be a Jew, who is there besides that censor Joe Lieberman? He is the worse kind of politician. If we really want a Jew in the executive branch, someone with principles like Russ Feingold instead, please. Lieberman is horrible.

[Guest Some Guy]

"So why can't we just elect a black president and end that discussion?  For all the social progress that's been made in this country, I find it odd that we've never elected a leader who was not a white man, or that neither of the big parties have ever advanced a black or a woman as a candidate.  Paging Mr. Powell..."

 

The reason is simple, there has simply not been an electable minority who has tried to run for office.  Jackson and Sharpton are hated by everyone except the inner city and the media, Watts is still an unknown and Powell has said many times that he doesn't want to run so there is the reason.  

As far as women go Ferrara and Hillary are the only well known women who have or will run for Prez/VP but their both Socialists.  When the whole country finds out how far to the left Hillary is then she goes away.