Things are going very badly for the president.
Teixeria summerizes:
The latest Pew Research Center poll finds Bush's approval ratings headed downwards. In the poll, Bush's overall approval rating is now 46 percent approval/47 percent disapproval, compared to 50 percent/43 percent in January. His approval ratings on Iraq (from 45/50 to 40/53) and on foreign policy (from 48/43 to 43/46) have fallen even further over the same period. And even his approval rating on handling terrorist threats has declined from 62 to 59 percent.
The Pew poll also shows that, despite a recent uptick in optimism about prospects for stability in Iraq, support for the Iraq war itself is declining. The public is now split 47 percent-47 percent on whether using military force against Iraq was the right decision or wrong decision, the most negative reading ever on this poll question by Pew. Moreover, independents now believe using military force was the wrong decision by 53-42, the most negative reading yet among this particular group.
As for whether Bush has a clear plan to bring the Iraq situation to a successful conclusion, just 32 percent now believe he does, compared to 61 percent who think he does not. That is also the most negative result ever on this particular question. It would appear that the Iraqi elections, despite favorable initial reaction, have not fundamentally altered dubious public views of the Iraq situation.
So a month after the State of the Union love-in the press threw for Bush in the wake of the Iraqi elections, approval of the President's performance has fallen by four points in the same poll. Ouch.
If I'm Rove right now, I'm seriously beginning to wonder just how bad this thing could get, especially when we hit 2000 casualities later on this year. Iraq clearly does not have the shelf life of Vietnam. In a year or two their position might be untenable.
Iraq is hurting the President so bad, he is having almost no success getting his agenda jump started. Teixeria points to The latest NPR poll showing very unhealthy numbers for the Bush's SS plan, and the latest Gallup poll is even worse.
Sometimes I wonder what planet these guys are on. Did they honestly believe they still had enough credibility with Americans after everything that's happened to try to float something as bizarre and irrelevant as this plan?
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