Webloggin » Poll: Most Americans Do Not Believe the Bush Administration Has Gone Too Far

You may have missed this report while you were being inundated by mindless MSM reports on the demise of the Republican Party at the hands of the Bush administration.

(CNN) — Most Americans do not believe the Bush administration has gone too far in restricting civil liberties as part of the war on terror, a new CNN poll released Thursday suggests.

While 39 percent of the 1,013 poll respondents said the Bush administration has gone too far, 34 percent said they believe the administration has been about right on the restrictions, according to the Opinion Research Corp. survey. Another 25 percent said the administration has not gone far enough. [em mine.]

Asked whether Bush has more power than any other U.S. president, 65 percent of poll respondents said no. Thirty-three percent said yes. Of those who said yes, a quarter said that was bad for the country.

Whoa, Democrats have been lying to me all along? I thought that President Bush was a one man civil liberties wrecking machine!

You have to love the last line in the quote above. “Of those who said yes, a quarter said that was bad for the country.” This is the typical of the mainstream media attempts to inflate support for their pet agenda items. A quarter of 33% is 8.25% but I guess it wouldn’t sound quite so optimistic for Democrats if CNN reported that only 8% of Americans think that President Bush’s grip on power is bad for the country.

There is no word yet on whether or not the pollster has been locked up and barricaded by angry Democrats.

UPDATE: Conversely they could mean that a true 25% of those polled said that it would be bad for the country but I am going to take the MSM literally just like they have been doing for years. Hence “of those” implies a quarter of 33 if I am to follow the MSM lead. Of course CNN could make it easy to find the poll but that would be a bit too much information for them to release in a report. Even in the worst case this implies that up to 75% of Americans (minimally) do not feel that President Bush’s grip on power is bad for the country according to this poll.

Update II: CNN has now added poll results to the story. Unfortunately they are still missing the question about the number of those polled who said that the amount of power Bush has is bad for the country.

Since I had a second look at the poll I’d like to restate it the way I see it. 65% do not think that George W. Bush has more power than any other president in U.S. history, 59% of Americans polled believe the Bush administration has not gone too far in the war against terror with 25% thinking that Bush hasn’t gone far enough. These numbers are overwhelming when compared to what we have been hearing for the last couple of years.

Finally: I’m not the only one who noticed this poll! Hot Air is with me.