Two Sided Coin for Bush: Villain and Hero
In the telephone interview, pollsters asked: "If you were asked to name a famous person to be the biggest villain of the year, whom would you choose?"
One-in-four said George W. Bush. Osama bin Laden came in a distant second at 8 percent, followed by Saddam Hussein, 6 percent; President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, 5 percent; and Kim Jong Il, North Korean leader, 2 percent.
Results of the open-ended questions suggest that the country remains polarized, although twice as many Americans see Bush through a negative lens than through a positive one. However, Bush did out-poll Jesus.
Second question: "If you were asked to name a famous person to be the biggest hero of the year, whom would you choose?"
One-in-eight (13 percent) named Bush, followed by soldiers/troops in Iraq at 6 percent. Three tied for third, with 3 percent each: Oprah Winfrey, media darling Barack Obama and Jesus Christ.
Margin of error in the poll of 1,004 adults from all states except Alaska and Hawaii: "No more than one time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than plus or minus 3 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all people in the U.S. were polled."