Bush least popular US president: survey
December 17, 2005 - 7:29AM

President George W Bush ranks as the least popular and most bellicose of the last 10 US presidents, according to a new survey. Only nine per cent of the 662 people polled picked Bush as their favourite among the last 10 presidents. John F Kennedy topped that part of the survey with 26 per cent, closely followed by Bill Clinton (25 per cent) and Ronald Reagan (23 per cent). Bush was also viewed as the most warlike president (43 per cent), the worst for the economy (42 per cent) and the least effective (33 per cent). But he was rated most highly in response to a question on who would do the right thing even if it were unpopular.

The survey was conducted by the Chicago-based National Qualitative Centres, a marketing research company, as part of research for a forthcoming book on popular preferences, one of its authors, Ken Berwitz, said.

© 2005 AAP