Making the Grade

So I was just reading the Wall Street Journal and I saw a poll on Bush's performance on Iraq. The exact question was, "How do you grade Bush's leadership of the Iraq war so far this year?" The options were A, B, C, D, or F. What would you guess his average grade is so far?

Well, 57% of voters have given Bush an F (6,249 people have voted so far). 13% gave him a D. I draw a few conclusions from this:

• The WSJ readership can't be nearly as conservative (or delusional) as the WSJ editorial page. This makes sense, since outside the editorial page the Journal is actually a very good newspaper.


• Still, if there's one nonpartisan publication whose readers ought to be sympathetic to Bush, the Journal is it. I take this as fairly conclusive proof that Krugmanesque Bush-skepticism has gone mainstream.


• This will make for a very interesting dynamic as Republican presidential hopefuls position themselves relative to Bush.

Of course, the poll is far from scientific, and I imagine there's some selection bias in favor of people who feel strongly about Bush and/or Iraq. Still, it's pretty impressive.