Obama tops ‘worst president’ list
A new poll on Wednesday found US President Barack Obama, who is enduring a tough second term, topping a list of the worst US leaders since World War II.
The survey, by the polling institute at Quinnipiac University, revealed that 33 per cent of those asked saw Mr Obama as the worst leader in the last 70 years.
Twenty-eight percent picked his predecessor, Republican George W. Bush.
Mr George Bush is one of the worst presidents in US history, according to the poll.
Quinnipiac said that 35 per cent saw Republican Ronald Reagan, president from 1981 to 1989, as the best US leader since 1945, with 18 per cent choosing Bill Clinton and 15 percent going for the assassinated John F. Kennedy.
Eighteen per cent chose former president US Bill Clinton as one of the best leaders.
“Over the span of 69 years of American history and 12 presidencies, President Barack Obama finds himself with President George W. Bush at the bottom of the popularity barrel,” said Mr Tim Malloy, assistant director of polling for Quinnipiac.
Forty-five percent of those polled said that America would have been better off had Republican Mitt Romney won the 2012 election, while 38 per cent said the country would be worse off.
Presidents typically capture the most heat while they are in office, and many find that their spells in the White House are reevaluated when they have retired and are out of Washington’s bitter partisan crossfire.
Jimmy Carter, a one-term Democrat whose 1981-85 presidency is often pilloried, was seen as the worst president by only eight per cent.
Source: AFP
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