This is what we're up against.
Asked to choose between George Washington and George W. Bush, Republicans in the survey supported Bush by a margin of more than 2 to 1.
And they claim the patriotic highground. Well it seems that if we had been able to run a resurrected George Washington on the top of the Democratic ticket in 2004, we would have won, but with 62% of the Republican party kicking and screaming (I take this to mean that they'd have managed to rig it in Ohio so that Washington lost). In fact, only 28% of self-identified Republicans would vote for the founding father of the country over the bungling idiot who stands the best chance of bringing this great nation down in disgrace.
I know it's a silly question. But I don't think that its hypothetical nature invalidates the obnoxiousness of the results.
What could possibly be the explanation?
Maybe Washington wasn't a freedom fighter to them? Maybe the wingnuts consider him a terrorist? Speaking of the revolution, this one is even sadder than the first:
Only 46 percent of the 800 adult Americans surveyed could identify him as the general who led the Continental Army to victory in the Revolutionary War.
So we have an actual war hero, whose efforts led to the existence of our country and our independence and freedom from tyrannical colonialism -- a man who single-handedly defined the office of the President and who gave birth to the traditions of the executive by his every action.
And we have a spoiled inarticulate dry drunk draft-dodger who failed at everything he endeavored to do, until he was placed like a pawn in a position of power by selfish corporate interests who would seek to establish a new colonialism over the world and over our own consumerist citizenry.
That's some kind of loyalty. Scary.