38% and Holding (Pew)
The Chimp in Winter

President Bush's job approval rating sticks at 38 percent in the latest Pew Research Center poll, the same as it was in December. But there's continuing good news about party affiliation:

The poll shows that, as with views of congressional leaders, Washington's controversies have not had an impact on opinions of the president. Bush's approval rating has not changed since December (38% approve/54% disapprove). However, the Democratic Party holds a sizable advantage over the GOP as the party better able to handle the country's most important problem. Fully 41% believe the Democratic Party can do a better job of handling the nation's top problem, compared with 27% who say the Republican Party. This represents a major shift from a year ago, when the public split about evenly on which party could better address the most important national problem.

And regarding civil liberties, poll respondents were downright libertarian:

As has been the case since shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Americans overwhelmingly reject the idea of the government monitoring their phone calls, emails and credit card purchases. By about three-to-one (73%-24%) the public opposes allowing government surveillance of their personal phone calls and emails. This measure has changed very little since September 2001, just after the attacks, when 70% opposed government monitoring of private communications.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Americans were somewhat more accepting of the government monitoring their credit card purchases, but this sentiment soon receded. Currently, 68% oppose allowing the government to scrutinize their credit card records, a slight increase from August 2002 (63%).

This roughly coincides with theses numbers from the recently released AP/IPSOS poll:

Yet 56 percent of respondents in an AP-Ipsos poll said the government should be required to first get a court warrant to eavesdrop on the overseas calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens when those communications are believed to be tied to terrorism.

[UPDATE 4:15pm PST] Glenn Greenwald over at Crooks and Liars makes a good point about polling questions:

But it is critical to note that still no poll has asked the core question raised by this scandal – that is, whether Americans approve of the Bush Administration eavesdropping on Americans without a warrant where Congress has passed a law prohibiting such eavesdropping. This scandal is about Bush’s violations of the law, not warrantless eavesdropping itself. To get at the heart of this matter, then, a poll must ask whether the Bush Administration has the right to eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant if Congress has banned such eavesdropping by law.