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ANCHORAGE - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was a strong second among the most-admired women, behind Hillary Clinton but ahead of television host Oprah Winfrey, when the USA Today/Gallup poll was conducted Dec. 12-14.

President-elect Barack Obama dethroned President George W. Bush as the nation's most-admired man this year in spectacular fashion. Bush topped the most admired man list in 2007 with a 10 percent showing, his seventh straight year on top. He reached as high as 39 percent shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. This month, however, he sank to 5 percent to finish a distant second to his successor.

Obama was named most admired living man by 32 percent of Americans, a figure that Gallup poll analyst Lydia Saad called "extraordinarily high." The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.