What's that you say? You don't think this country is as sharply divided as all the pundits and politicians say?
According to a Gallup poll released Wednesday, the woman the Americans most admired was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
[ . . .]
Clinton barely surpassed Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor. 16 percent of the citizens named Clinton, followed by 15 percent naming Palin.
I suspect there's nothing more going on here than the fact that we tend to "admire" politicians in a poll-taking sense and throw out a name we've been hearing a lot, which is not the same thing as thinking deeply about the issue. Persident Obama was first on the most-admired-men list at 30 percent, with former President Bush second at 5 percent, which roughly reflects how much time the two have been in the news this year.