How Low Did They Go?

President Bush's approval ratings rebounded slightly late in 2005, but are again creeping southward as a result of pessimism about the war in Iraq and the uproar over the Dubai ports deal.

His approval rating has fallen to a personal all-time low of 34 percent in a new CBS News poll. Vice President Cheney, the administraiton's Death Star, clocked in at a pathetic 18 percent and he hasn't even shot anyone in a couple of weeks.

(For an analysis of the poll by GOP pollster Bob Moran, go here. Moran says that things aren't as bad as they look, but acknowledges that the GOP is in a heap of trouble, anyway.)

Anyhow, Bush's 34 percent low is a record for him, but not unfamiliar territory.

Here, courtesy of reader "AJ" at Talking Points Memo, are the high and low poll numbers of Presidents Bush and predecessors as computed by the Roper Center:

G.W. Bush: 92-34
Clinton: 73-36
G.H.W. Bush: 89-29
Reagan: 68-35
Carter: 75-28
Ford: 74-37
Nixon: 67-23
Johnson: 80-35
Kennedy: 80-56
Eisenhower: 79-48
Truman: 87-22
Roosevelt: 84-48

An observation:

Bush's record 92 percent approval rating came in the wake of 9/11 when Americans, almost to the last man and woman, rallied around him. His fall to 34 percent takes him into dangerous territory because it is indicative that only the hardest of the hard core are maintaining their support for him.

That must be frightening for an administration that believed that it had the country -- if not the world -- by the short and curlies not that long ago but has run out of rabbits to pull out of its hat and has nearly three more years to make an even bigger mess of things.

It is simply extraordinary how the president, helped along nicely by events, to be sure, has squandered his mandate. The same can be said for LBJ (because of another fool's mission, the Vietnam War) and Truman (who found leading in peace to be a whole lot more difficult than in war).

And another observation:

The White House has lost control of Congress. It is no longer unthinkable that the Republicans could lose their majority in the mid-term elections, as well.