« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

USN&WR ‘Worst President’ Poll: Geo. Washington? Look Closer…

THE STUPID POLL IS BROKEN, MASKING THE FACT THAT NEARLY 50% OF THE RESPONDENTS IN THIS ADMITTEDLY UNSCIENTIFIC POLL PICKED BARACK OBAMA.

By: Steve Maley (Diary)  |  March 25th, 2010 at 03:10 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

An online poll at U.S. News and World Report asks readers to vote on their choice for Worst U.S. President of All Time.

The overwhelming ‘winner’ is: George Washington! That’s right: Father-of-Our-Country, “I-cannot-tell-a-lie” George Washington, by a margin of 6 to 1 over the next runner up!

That’s odd, because George usually rates in the top five best Presidents in most polls. Often the best.

Could it be that there’s something wrong with the poll? Enquiring minds want to know….

On the poll site, the Presidents are listed in reverse chronological order. Without looking under the hood there’s no way to know for sure, but I’m guessing that when someone bypasses the vote and simply clicks on “See Results”, a bug in the program registers a vote for the last name on the list: that would be Mr. Washington.

So, just out of curiosity, I ranked the votes of all the Presidents against each other, excluding the suspect Washington vote. The graph below shows the result.

There. With about 43% of the vote, Barack Obama wins by a landslide.

That’s more like it.

Tags: , , ,
Get Alerts

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • http://www.barrypopik.com barrypopik

    U.S. News & World Report still exists? Who knew?

    • hunter10

      Maybe respondents mistook worst for first.

  • larueladue
    • Jack_Savage

      It used to be an excellent magazine, When Zuckerman took over it went straight to hell.

      • tankertodd

        A few years back I was surprised that Bill O’Reilly put this on some sort of boycott/do not read list. Didn’t matter since I didn’t read it, but I thought it was interesting.

      • larueladue

        I dropped it years ago. It got to be too much like People and Newsweek… If I wanted to read them, I would have bought them,

      • http://seekingliberty.wordpress.com fmaidment

        …everywhere.

        It has been touted by teachers for decades as a tremendous source for current world, economic and political news.

        It’s no wonder Lefties have taken it over.

  • Doc Holliday

    reciting what they are taught by the NEA. BTW, Washington was the best by far, if people did their own research they would know why.

  • jb13

    super-educated, smarter-than-thou, “Global warming is real because a scientific consensus says so,” NY Times-reading Obama voters who thought that they were actually voting for George W. Bush, because Bush was stupid and inept and anyone who voted for him doesn’t know anything about anything, much less world and U.S. history.

    • momma

      Right, because Washington is three whole syllables. Easy to confuse, I’m sure.

  • js1956

    When will they ever learn? Please make sure your children are not in any left wing school, or classroom. I know this is difficult in far too many states these days, but we must make sure our children know the truth.

  • GT350

    I heard Washington murdered a cherry tree. Makes him a reprehensible creature, in the Democrat tree-hugger mentality

    • merryj1

      .

  • Vladimir

    Don’t blame the educational system.

    Don’t blame the USNWR’s readers.

    THE STUPID POLL IS BROKEN, MASKING THE FACT THAT NEARLY 50% OF THE RESPONDENTS IN THIS ADMITTEDLY UNSCIENTIFIC POLL PICKED BARACK OBAMA.

    Whew. That’s better.

    • kyoufuu

      Every vote for Obama registers five votes for Washington.

    • jb13

      Sorry if my attempt at humor wasn’t up to par on this one. Just trying to have a little fun.

    • danasdaddy

      I don’t think you made it clear enough with that bolded, all-caps message…

      /sarc

    • texasgalt

      >>So, just out of curiosity, I ranked the votes of all the Presidents against each other, excluding the suspect Washington vote. The graph below shows the result.<<

      But when stuff is popping like it is today . . . skimming happens. :-)

  • kyoufuu

    I can understand all of the modern day presidents getting votes, but, really, Lincoln worse than Buchanan?

    The only thing I can imagine is that too many people don’t know the history of the civil war, and therefore believe Lincoln to have been the cause…

    • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

      Plus you get people thinking that Abe violated the Constitution, when the suspension of Habeas is in there.

      You get people thinking the Union invaded, when the Confederates fired the first shots.

      Plus you get the Democrats who just hate the first Republican President.

      • kyoufuu

        I mean, how many times has The Won compared himself to Lincoln? Some of the pessimism is bound to rub off

        But alas, I think I have to accept that it’s more likely a product of poor education than anything else.

        My vote would be for William Henry Harrison. Not because he did anything particularly bad, but mostly because of the prevailing notion that he was killed by his need to read his 8400 word inauguration speech in the midst of bad weather.

      • Doc Holliday

        Lincoln was one of the greatest presidents there is no doubt. I don’t think the people who participated in this know anything about anything. If Washington is the worst, then this is bizzaro world.

        And those people “thinking the North invaded, when the Confederates fired the first shots” are right. They both happened :)

        • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

          I’ll leave whether to have that out up to Vlad, since it’s his post. :-)

      • http://seekingliberty.wordpress.com fmaidment

        Okay, not really, but most people don’t even know about Bleeding Kansas. It’s the war that was essentially between the Jayhawkers of Kansas and the Bushwhackers of Missouri, starting in 1856 after a hotly-contested, slavery/state’s rights election.

        John Brown got his start in Bleeding Kansas.

        Your historical footnote for the day.

  • smitch61

    But the next worse is The current president!

    priceless!!

  • merryj1

    … about the age, perspective and/or collective IQ of poll-takers in this USNWR curiosity. Cyber-gremlins may account for the disconnect on Washington, but what explanation is there for Jimmy Carter not holding his rightful place in infamy-land?

  • BillM

    …no one else even close, Buchanan prolly a distant second.

  • http://UnitedConservativesofVirginia Cargosquid

    can compare himself with Washingtion.

    And believe me, if he knows about the poll, he will….

    Wilson is the worst as he was the basis for FDR who started the current crap.

  • http://thesandsinstitute.org Vassar Bushmills

    I have to remember your style. This was masterful!
    Hah!
    Pasebo bolshoi.

    • Vladimir

      …I’m not really Russian.

      Don’t tell anyone.

      • http://thesandsinstitute.org Vassar Bushmills

        Yeah, I knew. It just allows me to lapse..

        But this was a gem…for reasons that wouldn’t be polite to report here.
        Cheers

  • LeaveMeAlone

    …the numbnuts lefties think “W” was for Washington?

  • E Pluribus Unum

    A certain amount of satisfaction went along with that, didn’t it?

  • huskerchuck

    I really haven’t read any newsweeklies for ages, but when I used to delve into them, the bias of NW and Time was pretty clear. I was always impressed and pretty happy with USN&WR. That’s too bad to hear that it’s gone downhill like that. Another good resource gone downhill.

  • skat

    I just took the poll out of curiousity and it was George Washington 71.9% and Obama 11.4% – something is wrong. Seems like if it was a mistake, they’d notice and fix it, doesn’t it?

    • Vladimir

      …so, no.

      Or it may mean they don’t even pay attention to the results of their own worthless crap polls.

  • cmd418

    Yesterday you highlighting all of the flaws of the Harris online poll. Now, you are trumpeting the results of an equally bad (not even propensity weighted poll), seemingly because in might show data that you agree with.

    That makes your earlier critique of the Harris methodology on “scientific grounds” hard to take seriously, don’t you think?

    If it’s a bad poll, it’s just bad, no matter which side it supports.

    • http://vladenblog.tumblr.com Vladimir
  • medamorphus

    that Obama has risen to this position with only 14 months in office, he hasn’t even spent the full four years yet to claim his spot. I have every confidence in him with the full four years he’ll clear the field.

  • smagar

    They had several categories—greatest politician, greatest entertainer, greatest athlete. etc…

    The Turks got it in their head to flood the voting system (I think it was online) with votes for Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, as the century’s greatest politician. Similar to what Cincinatti Reds fans did back in the ’70s, resulting in 8 of 9 National League All-Star starters being Reds.

    Well, it worked, and Ataturk shot to the top of the poll.

    Then the Greeks decided to be helpful…

    Why stop at greatest politician? Apparently the Turks forgot there were other categories in the poll!

    Pretty soon, Ataturk was right behind Jim Thorpe for the century’s greatest athlete, and neck-and-neck with Elvis for greatest entertainer.

    How many Greeks subscribe to USNWR?