Poll: First lady embraced, president not

This is interesting. From CNN.Com:

(CNN) -- Far more Americans think highly of first lady Laura Bush than they think of her husband, a poll released Thursday said.

Fewer than half of Americans say they have a favorable opinion of President Bush and his top aides, about the same number who said that last summer, the poll found.

But nearly three out of four (73 percent) said they have a favorable opinion of Laura Bush, the CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll said. Thirteen percent described their opinion of her as unfavorable.

First Lady Laura Bush's Poll Numbers. From CNN.Com

President Bush's Poll Numbers. From CNN.Com

The telephone poll of 1,003 adult American adults was conducted December 16-18 and has a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Asked their opinions of the president, 46 percent said they were favorable, a figure statistically equivalent to the 48 percent who gave that response in a July 25-28 poll.

The irony of these poll results are just incredible. I don't really hear much about Laura Bush in the news, although I'll admit that she's involved in her own charitable causes, as First Lady. She's not the co-equal partner that Hillary Clinton was, during Bill Clinton's two terms (Hillary Clinton was chosen to head up the national health care committee). That's not to say that Laura Bush was not influential in advising President Bush on policy issues. But rather, Laura Bush projected the image of a stay-at-home-wife to the Bush White House, over that of the Hillary Clinton's dual-career / co-equal-presidential-partnership of the Clinton administration. In other words, you can imagine Laura Bush baking cookies at home, while Hillary Clinton was a power-woman, working in the office (Hillary probably didn't know how to bake cookies). And now with the Bush White House political agenda exploding under its own scandals and mis-management, it is not surprising that President Bush's poll numbers are lower than that of his First Lady.