Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Bush's job rating continues to drop

Found this from CNN.Com:

(CNN) -- President Bush's job approval rating continues to plummet, with 39 percent of Americans surveyed in the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll supporting his performance, compared to 58 percent expressing disapproval.

The approval rating was the lowest the poll has recorded during Bush's presidency, down from 45 percent in a survey taken September 26-28, and the disapproval rating was up from 50 percent.

The latest poll results, released Monday, were based on interviews with 1,012 adult Americans conducted by telephone October 13-16. In both surveys, the questions on approval ratings had a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Bush has seen his approval rating steadily decline since he was sworn in for a second term in January, when 57 percent approved of his handling of the job and 40 percent disapproved.

So now Bush has dropped down to under 40% approval ratings. It doesn't surprise me with all the mis-steps the White House has created--from the FEMA fiasco with both Hurricane's Katrina and Rita (And now we have a Category 5 monster named Wilma off the Florida coast), Iraq war, high energy prices, Valerie Plamegate (Complete with all the rumors of Fitzgerald handing down indictments against senior Bush officials). You also have to wonder whether the Bush White House is tainted by the scandals rocking the GOP-Congress, with Tom DeLay being indicted on money-laundering charges, Bill Frist being investigated for insider-trading of stock, and just about anyone who has talked or met with lobbyist Jack Abramoff. It is a total snowball effect that is barreling down towards the White House. And it is going to get worst if Fitzgerald start indicting Karl Rove, Scooter Libby or even Dick Cheney. For the past year, the Bush White House has been lurching from one crisis to the next crisis without any thought towards the long-term consequences. Oh, there's Bush's pick of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court--who may have been chosen for both long and short-term political reasons. But even her nomination has caused a crisis, the the right-wingnuts claiming that Miers is not "conservative" enough for them. And the Bush White House has had to deal with that crisis. Is it no wonder that voters are jumping off this rudderless Bush Ship-of-State?

We still have three more years left of this Bush presidency.

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