The dumbest poll ever

The headline in USA Today reads: "Bush tops 'most admired' poll."

But that isn't exactly what the story says. The poll actually shows that President Bush and former President Bill Clinton are statistically tied as the most admired men. (Bush is the choice of 10 percent of respondents, and Clinton gets 8 percent. The poll has a margin of error of 3 percentage points, so Bush and Clinton are tied.)

Of course, the whole exercise is stupid. Sitting U.S. presidents, no matter how low their overall approval ratings, almost always come out at or near the top in these "most admired" polls. With nine out of every 10 respondents choosing somebody other than the so-called winner, the effort is rightly regarded as a waste of time.

And what are we to make of Hillary Clinton garnering six times as many votes as Laura Bush for the title of most admired woman? We should make nothing of it -- or of anything else having to do with this ridiculous poll.

Henry Hyde and the Four Bobs

The death of Henry Hyde this week has stirred widespread media memories of his role in the impeachment of Bill Clinton nine years ago.

Thomas B. Edsall over at Huffington Post tells the little-known story of how Hyde tried to avoid the impeachment ordeal.

POSTSCRIPT: I've been searching feverishly, but unsuccessfully, for a remark Hyde made during the impeachment drama. I recall the gist of it but not the exact words. He predicted, in effect, that the Senate would not convict Clinton if there wasn't strong public support for removing the president from office. There wasn't such support, and the Senate accordingly voted to acquit.

Hyde seemed to recognize that impeachment is a political process, not a criminal prosecution. The ultimate jury in such a case is the American public.

In the week he was impeached in 1998, Clinton's approval rating among the American people jumped 10 points to 73 percent, a higher level than Ronald Reagan ever reached.

POSTSCRIPT II: I knew Henry Hyde, but not well. I met him in the early 1970s when he was still in the Illinois General Assembly, and I ran into him on several occasions over the years. Consistent with his reputation, he struck me as courtly, polite, articulate and friendly. But I opposed most of what he stood for politically.

Most Americans still love Bill Clinton

Whenever right-wing rants against Bill Clinton and his presidency arise these days on talk radio or in letters to newspapers, I get the sense that the callers and writers have no knowledge whatever of how popular Clinton remains among the American people.

They seem to think that the mere mention of Clinton's name arouses the disdain of the populace.

But consider the results of this latest Washington Post-ABC News poll: Two-thirds of respondents approve of the job Clinton did as president. Even one-third of Republicans give him high marks. George W. Bush's performance in the White House, by comparison, is approved by only 33 percent of Americans in general.

The rightists also seem to have forgotten, if they ever knew, that Clinton was wildly popular even at the time the Republican-controlled U.S. House was voting bills of impeachment against him. In the very week that he was impeached, Clinton's approval rating in the Gallup Poll jumped 10 points to 73 percent, a higher mark than Ronald Reagan ever achieved.

Obama says ixnay on impeachment, but he wouldn't have a vote on the matter anyway

Barack Obama said Thursday that he's against any move to impeach either George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, despite their administration's "loose ethical standards...secrecy and incompetence."

Obama added that he thinks "you reserve impeachment for grave, grave breaches, and intentional breaches of the president's authority. I believe if we began impeachment proceedings, we will be engulfed in more of the politics that has made Washington dysfunctional. We would once again, rather than attending to the people's business, be engaged in a tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, non-stop circus."

The Rascal, too, has been reluctant to advocate impeachment of Bush, at least thus far, but I'm not so sure about Cheney. And I think cases can be made -- indeed, several officially have been made -- for frog-marching some administration officials off to the pokey.

But let's not forget that Obama, as a senator, would have no formal say in whether Bush or Cheney are impeached. Impeachment is a matter to be decided only by the House of Representatives. Senators decide only whether to convict a person who's been impeached.

Bill Clinton, you'll recall, was impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate.

POSTSCRIPT: Impeached or not, Bush finds himself in deep doo-doo, as noted here.

Hillary spoofs "The Sopranos"

By way of a video that parodies the iconic finale of "The Sopranos," Hillary Clinton has announced that a number by Celine Dion has been chosen as the Clinton campaign song after a month-long public vote on Hillary's Web site.

The video, which co-stars a guy named Bill, is here.

McCain makes emotional gesture

In tonight's debate among Republican presidential hopefuls, John McCain, in a gesture that reminded some observers of Bill Clinton in a debate of 15 years ago, stepped toward a woman in the audience who lost a brother in Iraq and answered her question.

Videos of McCain's moment and Clinton's are here.

Manzullo was once an antiwar activist

Nineteen months ago, Republican Don Manzullo, who represents the Rockford area in the U.S. House, suggested that "the time is coming to consider gradually withdrawing U.S. troops" from Iraq.

But that was the one and only occasion on which he ever publicly expressed such thoughts. Maybe some of his constituents called his patriotism into question. Whatever the case, he has since been as steadfast in support of Bush administration policy in Iraq as any member of Congress. Last night, for example, he loyally toed the party line on a war-funding bill.

Manzullo even once said that Americans who dared "second guess" the president with regard to the war "should be put on a ship and sent off for a while."

There was a time, however, when Manzullo didn't subscribe to the notion that patriotism required Americans to unite behind the president when we have military forces in action in some foreign land. On the contrary, he ranted and raved about how wrong it was to send our forces into battle.

It happened in the spring of 1999, when the United States and NATO engaged in a military campaign to protect ethnic Albanians in Kosovo from Serbian aggression. Manzullo, following the cue of his Republican Party leadership, protested that the Clinton administration had "misjudged" the situation.

He lamented that we were "attacking a sovereign state." He condemned the bombing campaign that preceded the introduction of U.S. ground troops. He said the air strikes would only embolden the dictatorship of Slobodan Milosevic. He said efforts to reach "a diplomatic solution" should be pursued.

Concerned that the ground war "will cost hundreds if not thousands of American lives," Manzullo said, "I must do everything I can to stop that tragedy before it happens." Accordingly, he co-sponsored legislation demanding an end to U.S. participation in the war, despite President Clinton's warning that it would "sent the wrong message" to the enemy.

"I support the valiant fighting men and women of our armed forces," Manzullo declared. "That is why I am calling for their withdrawal."

He worried that American troops would be dragged into "hand-to-hand, house-to-house combat against a well-equipped" adversary, including "people fighting to protect their homeland against invasion."

Manzullo even went so far as to sign on as a plaintiff in a lawsuit that accused the president of violating the U.S. constitution and the 1973 War Powers Resolution.

Yes, he was mighty upset about it all, as were lots of his Republican colleagues. He and they were not deterred by any suggestion that dissent from U.S. war policy was somehow un-American.