AP Poll: Bush bigger villain than Satan...

...but also a bigger hero than Jesus (but by a lesser margin). How did this happen?

At first I thought this was a joke, but it appears to be legit. The AP did a poll asking 1,004 American adults who the biggest villain of 2006 was. Bush topped the list at 25%, handily beating the first runner-up, Osama bin Laden, who only managed to garner 8%. Here's a quote:

DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new poll from The Associated Press and AOL News has discovered that Americans are torn in terms of their perception of President George W. Bush and his performance in 2006. When asked to name the past year’s biggest villain, Bush was far and away the #1 choice, commanding 25% of the vote, distantly trailed by Osama Bin Laden (8%), Saddam Hussein (6%), President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran (5%), North Korean leader Kim Jong II (2%) and Donald Rumsfeld (2%). Satan only took in 1% of the vote, as did Hugo Chavez, Tom Cruise, Dick Cheney, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Rosie O’Donnell, among others.

On the flipside, Bush also claimed the top spot when Americans were asked to name the year’s biggest hero, but with only a trifling 13% of the vote. The troops in Iraq came in second (6%), followed by Jesus Christ (3%), Barack Obama (3%), Oprah Winfrey (3%), and rock star/philanthropist Bono (2%). Other “do-gooders” of 2006, receiving 1% each, included luminaries, business leaders and politicos such as Warren Buffett, George Clooney, Bill Gates, Al Gore, Billy Graham, Angelina Jolie, Colin Powell, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Condoleeza Rice.