Bush's approval ratings and media coverage of the war on terror

Bush

George W. Bush and the Media Regarding the War on Terror

In Afghanistan and Iraq Over the Past Few Years

This report looks at several polls regarding the United States of America's Presidential Approval ratings and how those rating are affected by specific media stories. To be more specific, the report aims to answer how public support for George W. Bush is affected by events such as the war on terrorism in Afghanistan, the war for oil in Iraq, and the devastating effects of the hijacked plane attacks on the United States. The internet has become an excellent source for gathering data and opinion polls so this report utilizes the Roper Center web site to provide complete listings of various polls for the Presidential Job Approval ratings over the course of George W. Bush's terms in office.

A secondary objective of the report is to analyze how the media has influenced these approval polls. The report tries to examine how the President's approval ratings fluctuate based on the media's coverage of events such as the war with Iraq, American military casualties because of the war in Iraq, the recent Abu Gharib Prison scandal or the capture of Saddam Hussein.

Job Approval ratings

As can be seen in the table below, George W. Bush was seen in the national polls as basically an ordinary leader with no real figures jumping out at the reader in the early stages of his administration. The majority of the polls in the nation hovered around a fifty percent approval rating. The nation seemed to be recovering from an election that seemed tainted at best.

The American people must have been waiting for something to help them bond with the man many thought took his office by cheating with the help of his younger brother who just happened to be the Governor in the same state where the scandal occurred. But then came the terrorist attacks on America. September 11, 2001, saw the nation and the world stunned into submission as the once great World Trade Center facility came crashing down in the blink of an eye.

The amazing thing about that event is how the President seemed to take charge and thus his approval ratings reflected the opportunity the nation had to bond with President Bush. The Bush approval ratings numbers jumped from the fifty percent range well into the eighty percent level and the Washington Post ratings were as high as ninety percent. One of the most amazing statistics in regard to the Presidential Approval ratings for George W. Bush was that his handling of the 9-11 situation propelled him to one of the highest approval ratings in presidential history.

Date Organization Approve Disapprove No Opinion Sample Size Notes 9/27-28/01

PSRA/Newsweek

WashPost

PSRA/Pew

Wirthlin Worldwide

Gallup/CNN/USA

PSRA/Newsweek

CBS/NYT

Fox/OpinDynamics

RV

Amer. Res. Group

NBC/WSJ

Harris/Time/CNN

PSRA/Newsweek

PSRA/Pew

Democracy Corps

Gallup

Gallup/CNN/USA

Media

Media coverage of the Bush administration has been too busy jumping from one topic to the next so there has been little overall damage to the Bush administration. When ever the situation gets too hot there seems to be a new story to take the heat off of the last one. Unlike the Monica Lewinski situation for Bill Clinton, there has yet to be a sustained direct attack on the Bush administration. The war on Iraq, the bungling of the search for Bin Laden, the ineffective attack on Afghanistan, the Abu Gharib Prison scandal, escalating gas and oil prices and the overall rate of jobs lost in a poor economy all by themselves would be enough to bring down the administration. but, for some unforeseen reason, the media has bounced between all of these events and therefore has never made the point to the American people that all is not well and we should really tie these results to the current administration. No sooner are we focused on one major story, the media shifts gears and changes to a new subject. This change limits the nation from following up or getting a true understanding of the situation.

America was reading about election returns from Ohio and Florida as they completely overlooked the fact that the casualty rate in Iraq is totally unacceptable considering the war was officially over months ago. Yet the fact that Fallujah, Iraq is currently at war with the United States as though it was its own country has been whitewashed by world oil prices reaching new highs and Scott Peter's finally being found guilty. Oh, and wasn't there supposed to be internal elections in Iraq. Did the Bush team want us to focus on the elections in Iraq to avoid us noticing the obvious flaws in our own election process? or, where the heck is Bin Laden? The point is that the Bush administration has benefited from our overly scattered media.

If the media was to pick one of the before mentioned topics and really dig as they did for Monica and the cigar, we would be getting rid of the current administration. As the British Secret Service was defending its evidence gathering methods for proof of weapons of mass destruction, consider that the Bush administration was equally as guilty yet the story has fallen completely out of the headlines. And was it mentioned, we still don't know where Bin Laden is Conclusion

In conclusion, this report attempted to look at several polls regarding the United States of America's Presidential Approval ratings and how those rating were affected by specific media stories. The internet is an excellent source for obtaining data and opinion polls and this report utilized the Roper Center web site to provide complete listings of various polls regarding the Presidential Job Approval ratings. A secondary objective of the report was to analyze how the media influenced approval polls and tried to examine how the President's approval ratings fluctuated based on media coverage of events such as the war with Iraq, American military casualties because of the war in Iraq, the recent Abu Gharib Prison scandal or the capture of Saddam Hussein.