Clinton "Outperformed" Bush?

So says a new CNN poll.

Respondents favored Clinton by greater than 2-to-1 margins when asked who did a better job at handling the economy (63 percent Clinton, 26 percent Bush) and solving the problems of ordinary Americans (62 percent Clinton, 25 percent Bush).

On foreign affairs, the margin was 56 percent to 32 percent in Clinton's favor; on taxes, it was 51 percent to 35 percent for Clinton; and on handling natural disasters, it was 51 percent to 30 percent, also favoring Clinton.

Moreover, 59 percent said Bush has done more to divide the country, while only 27 percent said Clinton had.

When asked which man was more honest as president, poll respondents were more evenly divided, with the numbers -- 46 percent Clinton to 41 percent Bush -- falling within the poll's margin of error. The same was true for a question on handling national security: 46 percent said Clinton performed better; 42 percent picked Bush.

Now I have plenty of bones to pick with Bush (signing the anti-First Amendment "Incumbent Protection Act" aka Campaign Finance Reform, not prosecuting the war in Iraq aggressively enough, and this cockamamie illegal alien amnesty predilection of his, to mention a few). But you gotta be kidding me???

The man that the whole world knows is a chronic liar (a fellow Dem even said on national TV that Clinton was an unusually good liar) is more honest than Bush??? Bush may have a lot of failings, but honesty isn't one of them.

The man whose idea of sound foreign policy is a good photo op rates better than Bush? The same man who sat on his hands (or was that dropped his pants) when terrorists repeatedly killed Americans throughout the '90s?

The man who raised people's taxes--and would have blown them sky-high if his wife's wacky socialized medicine plan had passed--rates better than Bush who has made tax relief (relief that average Americans--not just "the rich" have felt over and over again from the beginning)? Uh huh.

It wouldn't be too surprising to see Clinton's numbers better than they actually deserve; after all, with a propaganda arm comprised of ABC, NBC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Reports, and a host of others, it's not surprising that the message would get across to average Americans that this is what they're supposed to say when questioned.

But given the above propaganda master's propensity to "shape" and "create" the news they want, I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that when they conducted this poll, they called 1000 Democrats, 200 "independents" and 13 Republicans...