Amid the biggest security lock-down ever for an inauguration, a new CBS/New York Times poll shows that President Bush has the lowest approval rating at the start of a second term since Richard Nixon. Bush's 49 percent approval is below Nixon's rating of 51 percent in January 1973 and trails Bill Clinton's 60 percent and Ronald Reagan's 62 percent at similar points in their careers. An international poll conducted in 21 countries conducted by the BBC found that 58 percent of respondents "expected Mr Bush to have a negative impact on peace and security, compared with only 26% who considered him a positive force." The CBS/Times poll also found that "most Americans say they do not expect the economy to improve or American troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by the time Mr. Bush leaves the White House." Nearly two-thirds agreed "a second Bush term would leave the country with a larger deficit" and a majority of those surveyed said that they did not expect Bush to produce "any improvement in health care, education, or in reducing the cost of prescription drugs for the elderly"

Interesting article. Can't say I don't agree. Perhaps one day we can elect a president and bring strength back to the Oval Office?

It would take somebody like John McCain.

Michael Douglas was a good President...and plus he was so dreamy...ahhhhhhhh.


"Your fifteen minutes are up Bob"

Bush's new pet phrase of "spreading liberty" is going to come back and bite him. If he's serious about spreading liberty, maybe he can start by taking a look at the Patriot Act.* Of course, once people start catching on and calling on him to "spread liberty," Bush will abandon the concept and adopt whatever new pet phrase Papa Karl and Mama Karen conjure up for him.

---
*and before Krem gets into a discussion about the finer points of the Patriot Act, I'm just saying I want Bush to LOOK at it and actually defend what's in it, or repeal parts of it, or whatever action, as long as he actually says something useful. And no Krem, I don't YOU to do it. I want BUSH to do it.

ummm, if bush is 49%, and nixon was 51%, how is bush's approval the lowest since nixon ?

shouldn't it be the lowest since someone before nixon ?

:idea:

After like 5 minutes of processing your post in my head #-o ....


You're right!

If I had to guess, I'd say Bush has the lowest approval rating at the start of a 2nd term since Grant back in 1873, but since Nixon is much more infamous than Grant is, it's much more effective to say that Bush has less approval than Nixon.

I am not suprised...perhaps are country should elect someone who isn't a lying dumbass.


Anways...why is it he won the election if his rating is so low?

This is one of those intensely intriguing questions of semantics that make life worth living.

For example, it's not uncommon to hear: "He could care less what I say." (In other words: He doesn't care as much as he possibly could, which is no big deal really.

So what is being said here is (to be more succinct): Since the presidency of Richard Nixon, Dubya has the lowest rating.

It's really quite simple.

And of course, before Nixon you have LBJ and JFK, who benefited greatly from the power of the bully-pulpit - so much so that LBJ's standing wasn't all that diminished by the debacle in Vietnam, when it SHOULD have been. Ike and FDR were popular, of course; but I don't think Truman was at all, even though he was (like Dubya) a two-termer.

But then again, Dubya may not complete his second term. We can only pray that Cheney drops deads as soon as he gets the news.

Well, he beat Kerry because the the GOP spent a fortune on a smear campaign that tarnished Kerry's rep long before the debates ever got started.

He didn't win the popular vote in 2000. He owes his presidency to the Power Elite. With malicious foresight, those sleazy little rats sneakily created the Electoral College to over-ride the will of the majority.

And anyway, who said Amerika was a democracy? In spite of Dubya's ranting and raving about spreading democracy abroad, it isn't doesn't exist anywhere in the 50 states.

I don't know, Wertham, Bush's approval rating is the highest it's been since last March.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6845235/

And Wertham, without the Electoral College, Bush would have won by a larger margin than he did. And no, you can't say that was for the 2000 election. because these approval ratings don't apply to 2000.

Well, he obviously wouldn't BE the president had he not first "won" the rigged election of 2000. Since then, he's had plenty of opportunity to dress up like his daddy as a "wartime president," which is easy to do after HE started all these frickin wars and bankrupted the Treasury.

Well, I think they meant "Since the time of Nixon, Bush's have been the lowest."

In layman's terms his approval rating sucks ass.

Do we really have a large enough sample size here to be making any sort of grand conclusions? Approval ratings have only been around since Truman ( I think) and couple that with 2 term presidents or presidents that served more than 4 years (there goes Kennedy, Ford, Carter and Bush) and you have a pretty small sample.

Bush does not have the lowest approval ever and its currently around 50%. Its roughly the same as it was before the election. Did people excpect a bunch of people to jump on his bandwagon following his election victory? Seeing as how he is polarizing, I think not.

Taking all that into account, I think Bush should be happy with his current rating.

Happy Schmappy...Lets be honest here folks. I don't think Bush cares about his approval ratings.

Approval ratings alone won't escort you from the oval office early.

To hear him talk, Bush thinks that 100% of the electorate is already on his bandwagon.

To the winner goes the spoils.

America finally had a UK situation.

What evil do you go for, i would have thought though that y'all would have chosen the one who isnt falling in love with his Holocaust button.

Haven't we all learned by now that media polls aren't worth using as toilet paper?

If media polls accurately reflected what Americans really think, wouldn't that horse-faced guy from Massachusetts be president instead of stinking up the show at Condi's confirmation hearings?

Sounds like a blue-county heavy poll if you ask me.

These polls are greatly affected by how and what questions are asked. Examples follow:

Question One: Is United States President George Bush a better leader than France's Jacque Chirac? (Identifies Bush as American just like you and me and gives him the honor of his title and he is compared with France which is not in much favor in the U.S. right now.
Probable answer response:
65 percent yes, 35 percent no

Question Two: Has Bush made your life better? (strips him of his title, no id as President and offers no possible middle ground of same, so a response of sameness and worse gets grouped together)
Probable answer response:
30 percent yes, 70 percent no

So, one poll question shows 65 percent approval, while another poll question offers only 30 percent approval.

Polls are for schmucks.

=;

How about the whole "terror threat" in Boston? It seems that these magical terror threats come out of nowhere. My insticts aren't trusting any of the bullshit the Bush...I mean, Cheney/Rove Administration are feeding the people because there is never any real substantiation in these "terror reports", it's just ways to keep people in line.

Nunc pro tunc.

But neither of those questions deal with aprroval of the president. I can say, and will, that Bush is better than Hitler. It doesn't mean I approve of him.


I can say a certain president didn't really better my life. But what if things were already ok and he kept them that way? Would I dissaporve of him? Not necessarily.

What is your claim that these are "magical terror threats" based upon? BTW, its the Bush/Cheney administration. Karl Rove is a political adviser.

They are magical because there is never any substantiation behind the terror threats. It's all a way for us to line up like cattle to the House of Fear. I said that already.

And it really IS the Cheney/Rove administration. Bush is a puppet to both of them, they work him so well they practically have their hand up his ass working his internal organs. Bush is really just their pawn who says stupid things because he really isn't that bright and so he can look a little goofy, while Cheney and Rove are the brains of the administration because Bush isn't intelligent enough to be the *real* runner.