Clinton Left Office More Popular Than Reagan

OK, I admit it, I love delivering news that's sure to nauseate conservatives.

While doing some fact-checking on a previous post about President Bush's plummeting poll numbers, I came across some interesting numbers on end-of-presidency approval ratings.

Courtesy of The Washington Post and ABC News, here's how the final approval ratings of every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt looked:

• Franklin D. Roosevelt 66 percent
• Harry S. Truman 31 percent
• Dwight Eisenhower 59 percent
• John F. Kennedy 63 percent
• Lyndon Johnson 49 percent
• Richard Nixon 24 percent
• Gerald Ford 53 percent
• Jimmy Carter 34 percent
• Ronald Reagan 64 percent
• George Bush 56 percent
• Bill Clinton 65 percent

Not only have three of the four most popular presidents in recent memory been Democrats, but our own William Jefferson Clinton left office with a higher approval rating than the Republicans' Patron Saint, Ronald Reagan.

Given how Republicans continually try to convince us that the peace, worldwide respect and booming economy of the Clinton years were a terrible thing to behold, it must bug the hell out of them that the man they love to hate so much left office as such a popular figure.

This must also make Ken “Don Quixote” Starr feel that his whole life has been wasted.