Bush: "Honest" or "Incompetent?"

• Share

Over the last seven years, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has played a game of word association as part of its regular presidential polling, asking, "What one word best describes your impression of George W. Bush?" No options or suggestions are offered. The latest results — from a sample of 710 people done in March — aren't good for the President. Until this month, the word most associated with President Bush had always been "honest." Now the leading answer is "incompetent" (given by 29 people), followed by "good," "idiot" and "liar." "Honest" has slipped to 5th, tied with "Christian."

Three years ago, positive descriptions of Bush far outnumbered negative ones. In the past two years, the positive-negative ratio has been more nearly equal. This time, 48% of those polled used a negative word to describe Bush; just 28% picked a positive term; 10% chose neutral language. Six respondents chose a word that everyone could agree on: "President."