Public Rates The U.S. Presidents As "Hawks" Or "Doves"

(This cartoon image is by David Horsey when he was with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.)

This country remains mired in a war in Afghanistan, started way back in 2001 by George Bush -- and seems to be quickly re-engaging in Iraq (another Bush war). These wars haven't accomplished anything, except to kill thousands of soldiers and innocent civilians and to create many new enemies for the United States. But I guess they did serve to satisfy the hawkish tendencies of Bush, and possibly even Obama.

The YouGov Poll, in light of the re-engagement in Iraq, asked respondents to their recent survey to rate the modern American presidents on whether they were foreign policy "hawks" or "doves". The presidents rated were Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama.

The poll showed a definite trend toward rating the Democratic presidents as "doves" and the Republican presidents as "hawks". Every Republican president was rated as a "hawk", while every Democratic president except Johnson (whose presidency will forever be tarred by the Vietnam War) was rated as a "dove".

I also found it interesting that (in spite of continuing the Afghan War, bombing Libya, and currently re-engaging in the Iraq War) every demographic group in the U.S., except one, still views President Obama as a "dove". Hispanics were split on whether Obama was a "hawk" or "dove" (32% to 33%). I'm not at all sure that I would place President Obama in the "dove" category. We have been at war in at least one country in every year of his presidency.

What do you think? Did the survey put all of these presidents in the right category? Is President Obama really a "dove"?

These charts were made from information contained in a recent YouGov Poll. That survey was done on July 22nd and 23rd of a random national sample of 1,000 adults, and has a margin of error of about 4 points.