[Polls]

Forty and Falling

At some point in the not-to-distant future, Bush's polls will hit a valley and I'll quit talking about them. But we're not at that point, yet. Gallup today reports an all-time low of 40% approval for Bush, and Gallup is notoriously pro-GOP. Last year, they reliably oversampled conservatives and undersampled independents, so the actual approval is probably lower. (For example, last week they had him at 45%--several points above other pollsters.

The area in which Bush enjoys his highest approval is, remarkably, the Katrina response--at 41%. Even so, 56% believe he had purely political reasons for his response. Asked how to pay for the clean-up, 54% said (more or less) "get the hell out of Iraq." (A stalwart 17% say raise taxes.) And 81% believe an independent investigation is preferable to a congressional probe.

In summary: Americans disapprove of Bush's presidency, believing he acts for political reasons, and think he should pull out of Iraq. Yep, that political capital served him well.