Libs: Clinton More Popular Than Reagan

Frustrated liberals, angry at having to spend an entire week watching the nation pay tribute to the man they derided alternately as "an amiable dunce" and a heartless autocrat, are now claiming that Bill Clinton was actually a more popular president than Ronald Reagan.

"In truth, Ronald Reagan was never as popular as he is being presented to be with Americans," writes Slate Magazine's Eric Alterman.

"As president, [he] was never even as popular as Bill Clinton during the period of Clinton’s impeachment," argues the disgruntled Democrat.

For evidence, Alterman cites a Gallup poll that tracks approval ratings for Clinton, Reagan, Carter and both Bushes to back his claims. The same poll is touted prominently on Democrats.com, a Web site run by former Clinton White House staffers and DNC veterans.

Unfortunately for Alterman and the rest of the Reagan haters, some of us still remember what the voters said when they actually got a chance to make their will known at the polls.

Clinton, for instance, never won more than 49 percent of the vote, managing that feat in 1996. And he probably never would have been president at all without Ross Perot acting as a Republican spoiler in 1992, when Clinton squeaked in with just 43 percent of the vote.

Reagan, on the other hand, trounced his two Democratic opponents in 44- and 49-state landslides.

In fact, no president in U.S. history has ever gotten more votes than Reagan did in 1984, despite the fact that the nation's population has grown by more than 30 million in the last 20 years.

Editor's note: