Hungarian schoolchildren, in a poll that has for some reason become international news, report liking Bush less than Osama bin Laden, Saddam, or Joseph Stalin. Bush did manage to narrowly avoid being worse than Hitler in the poll (25 versus 23 percent). Oddly enough, Bush seems to have also been the most-liked foreigner (eight percent). One supposes there must have been two categories--most liked, and most disliked.
High School popularity contests are always a bad way to decide anything more important than the Prom Queen--even the Senior Class Presidency is really too important for it, as you need someone for the office who will develop into the responsible citizen that arranges reunions every five years forever.
Still, one expects that this says something about Hungary: that the parents of these kids spend a lot of time complaining about Bush, and not very much talking about Osama or Stalin. This, combined with the lack of historic context that attends youth, surely explains the results.
The results also reinforce the principle of crunchiness--that the further you get from decisions having practical consequences, the more obviously mad are your results. There is no consequence to a 16 year old in Hungary to saying that Bush is worse than Stalin, or Saddam; nothing depends on it. There is no reason he shouldn't say it, or even believe it. There is certainly no reason he should examine the sentiment closely or investigate its context. It changes nothing in his world; it is not worth his time.
But why, then, should we ask him what he thinks? Why should we print this high school survey from Hungary in newspapers as far away as India?
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