39/38% (Fox and CNN/USAToday/Gallup)

The Chimp in Winter

Two new polls out on the President's approval rating, and both are under 40%. The CNN/USAToday/Gallup poll has President Bush falling to 38%, a drop of just one point from the last polling period of the middle of February. Over at Fox, he's sitting at 39%. But what the Fox news story doesn't tell you (but which is found in the raw numbers from the downloadable PDF) is that Bush's approval rating dropped from 44% (5 points) in just three weeks (and his disapproval rating went up 7 points, from 47% to 54%). Note that Bush received a 3-point bump to 44% after his State of the Union, so you could argue that without that grandstanding, he would have dropped just 2 points from 41%.

OK, I'll stop hitting you over the head with the digits. The basic gist is: the elected leader of the United States is going down with his ship. Big time. And it's not looking like the BushCo Dumpling Gang will be taking any change orders from the top, at least according to this snippet from Sidney Blumenthal's latest column over at Salon (access requires subscription or sitting through a web ad):

[A] Republican wise man, a prominent lawyer in Washington who had served in the Reagan White House, sought no appointments or favors and was thought to be unthreatening to Bush, gained an audience with him. In a gentle tone, he explained that many presidents had difficult second terms, but that by adapting their approaches they ended successfully, as President Reagan had. Bush instantly replied with a vehement blast. He would not change. He would stay the course. He would not follow the polls. The Republican wise man tried again. Oh, no, he didn't mean anything about polls. But Bush fortified his wall of self-defensiveness and let fly with another heated riposte that he would not change.

He has been true to his word.

[UPDATE 4:55pm PST] And Quinnipiac dials in with its numbers:

Only 36 percent of voters approve of the job President Bush is doing, while 58 percent disapprove, his worst approval rating in a Quinnipiac University national poll and down 9 points from his 45 - 48 percent approval rating one year ago. Purple state voters give Bush a negative 31 - 63 percent approval, and blue state voters go negative 34 - 61 percent. Even red state voters are negative 42 - 51 percent.
[...]
By a 49 - 37 percent margin, voters want the Democrats to win control of Congress in this year's House and Senate elections. And if a candidate for Congress supports President Bush, only 16 percent of Americans are more likely to vote for that candidate, with 37 percent less likely and 45 percent who say it won't make a difference.