WASHINGTON – If you had to describe President Bush with one word, what would it be?
According to a new survey, the most frequent response was “honest.” The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press administered this political Rorschach test to 751 respondents who were asked to give their impressions of Bush in a single word.
Thirty-one said “honest,” Pew announced this week. That was followed by a range of often colorful terms that the research group said reflects the public’s deeply divided opinion about Bush. “Incompetent” came in second, with 26 votes. “Arrogant” was third with 24, followed by “good” (18), “integrity” (18), “determined” (15), “liar” (13), “stupid” (12), “idiot” (11) and “strong” (11). The rest of the list ranged from “weasel” to “honorable” to “con artist” to “president” to “terrific.”
Overall, the impressions were slightly more negative than positive, with 40 percent using words Pew interpreted as derogatory toward Bush and 36 percent using words classified as favorable. Twelve percent were neutral. The remainder did not answer or said they did not know. The numbers are about the same as those in the Pew survey in February.
“It’s another measure of the strong feelings he evokes – I think you get that from the words people use,” said Pew editor Carroll Doherty. “You see some measure of the polarization.”
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