Are We Still A Democracy?

Bad guy of 2006: President Bush. Good guy of 2006: President Bush. When people were asked in an AP-AOL News poll to name the villains and heroes of the year, Bush topped both lists, in a sign of these polarized times.

1. If you were asked to name a famous person to be the biggest villain of the year, whom would you choose?

1. George W. Bush, 25%


2. Osama bin Laden, 8%


3. Saddam Hussein, 6%


4. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, 5%


5. Kim Jong Il, North Korean leader, 2%


6. Donald Rumsfeld, 2%
   

2. If you were asked to name a famous person to be the biggest hero of the year, whom would you choose?

1. George W. Bush, 13%


2. Soldiers/troops in Iraq, 6%


3. Oprah Winfrey, 3%


4. Barack Obama, 3%


5. Jesus Christ, 3%


6. Bono, 2%

3. If you had to choose, which of the following celebrities would you say was the best role model this year?

1. Oprah Winfrey, 29%


2. Michael J. Fox, 23%


3. George Clooney, 12%


4. Angelina Jolie, 8%


5. Brad Pitt, 2%


6. Tom Cruise, 2%

4. And, if you had to choose, which of the following celebrities would you say was the worst role model this year?

1. Britney Spears, 29%


2. Paris Hilton, 18%


3. Mel Gibson, 12%


4. Tom Cruise, 9%


5. Michael Richards, 6%


6. Nicole Richie, 5%

The Associated Press-AOL News poll on who people think were the villains and heroes of the last year was conducted Dec. 19-21 and is based on telephone interviews with 1,004 adults from all states except Alaska and Hawaii. The poll was conducted by Ipsos, an international polling firm.

Results were weighted to represent the population by demographic factors such as age, sex, region, race and income.

No more than one time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than plus or minus 3 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all people in the U.S. were polled.