Tuesday, September 20, 2005

President at a Precipice



Say that very fast a few times. Then apologize to anyone who happened to be within your saliva range. The title comes from one description of yet another bad poll for George Bush.

The USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll suggests that George is not the likeable president the so-called liberal media likes to tell us. In fact, his disapproval rating is at a new high of 58%, and he is doing poorly even in the category of boldness: for the first time the majority doesn't find him that strong or decisive as a leader.

And

The survey shows signs of friction between the two most pressing concerns on Bush's agenda: the Iraq war and Katrina recovery.

A 54% majority says the best way for the government to pay for hurricane relief is by cutting spending for the war. Just 6% support spending cuts in domestic programs, as Bush has suggested.

Nearly two-thirds of those polled, 63%, say some or all of the U.S. troops in Iraq should be withdrawn. A record-high 59% say it was a mistake to invade.

Those polled also want an independent panel to study what went wrong with the Katrina unrescue efforts, not the kind of Republican panel we are going to have. This by a four-to-one margin. Hmmm.

But Bush doesn't care about focus groups. He told us so.