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CNN lied: Clinton polls didn't drop after
Monica
Media Matters
September 16, 2005
On CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, senior political analyst Bill Schneider falsely
equated President Bush's current widespread unpopularity -- and that of
President Reagan during the Iran-Contra scandal -- with President Clinton's
standing with the public during the Monica Lewinsky matter. Noting that,
despite his poor overall poll numbers, Bush still enjoys support from
Republicans, Schneider said, "Sooner or later, every leader gets in trouble.
President Reagan had Iran-Contra. President Clinton had Monica Lewinsky. Like
Bush, they had a base that helped them get through it." But Schneider's
suggestion that all three presidents had to rely on the support of their base
during times of general public unhappiness with their performance is mistaken:
While Reagan did see his approval ratings plummet to the low 40s during the
Iran-Contra matter, Clinton saw no similar erosion of public support during the
Lewinsky matter.
Unlike Schneider, the public apparently saw little similarity between, on
the one hand Reagan, whose administration illegally sold arms to Iran in hopes
of appeasing terrorists, and Bush, whose administration took the nation into a
war based on false pretenses and badly bungled preparation for, and response
to, Hurricane Katrina, and, on the other, Clinton, who had an inappropriate
personal relationship.
Clinton's approval ratings were very high all through 1998 as the Lewinsky
matter played out -- typically in the 60s, occasionally (such as when the
Republican-controlled House of Representatives impeached him) breaking 70
percent. As an Associated Press summary of polls conducted in 1998 by the Pew
Research Center for the People and the Press and by CNN/USA Today/Gallup shows,
Clinton's approval ratings were high when news of the Lewinsky matter surfaced,
and remained high when former White House volunteer Kathleen Willey made
further widely publicized allegations against him; when he admitted a
relationship with Lewinsky; when Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr released his
report; and when House Republicans voted to impeach him.
As Schneider himself reported on the December 30, 1998, edition of CNN's
Inside Politics:
SCHNEIDER: President Clinton's job ratings have been in the 60s for
most of the year -- the highest ratings for any president on record in his
sixth year. Clinton's ratings spiked three times this year: after the State of
the Union speech in January and again in August just after his speech in which
he confessed his, "misleading the American public for the past seven months."
The president got his biggest bounce of all, a phenomenal 73 percent, after he
got impeached in December. A few more setbacks like that and he'll go into the
stratosphere.
By contrast, Reagan's approval ratings plummeted during the Iran-Contra
scandal. In early December 1986 -- shortly after revelations that the Reagan
administration sold arms to Iran and used the profits to support Contra rebels
in Nicaragua were made public -- a New York Times poll showed Reagan's approval
down 21 percentage points in just a month, to 46 percent. By late February
1987, his approval was only 42 percent -- George W. Bush's current territory,
and 20 or more points lower than Clinton's was during most of 1998.
From the September 15 edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight:
SCHNEIDER: President Bush has one thing going for him as he tries
to regain the initiative: He has kept his base. Every leader needs a base. Your
base are the people who are with you when you're wrong. This president's base
is not abandoning him. Eighty-five percent of Republicans stand behind
President Bush. His allies defend him.
[...]
Sooner or later, every leader gets in trouble. President Reagan had
Iran-Contra. President Clinton had Monica Lewinsky. Like Bush, they had a base
that helped them get through it.
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