Bush approval rating sinks to new low in CBS poll

WASHINGTON – President Bush’s job approval rating fell to an all-time low – 34 percent – in a poll published Tuesday. That puts him not far above Richard Nixon’s Watergate-era nadir and raises questions about how effectively he can govern in his remaining years in office.

The poll, conducted nationwide by CBS News between last Wednesday and Saturday, found that 59 percent of U.S. adults disapproved of Bush’s job performance. His 34 percent approval rating was the lowest since he took office in 2001, eight points lower than in January. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

“Bush is in trouble,” said Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. “One would tend to think the dip is the Dubai ports issue, which has meant a spate of bad news. But there’s been a collection of bad news.”

A politically toxic mix of messes has dragged Bush down, including his handling of Hurricane Katrina, the ill-fated nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, the upsurge of violence in Iraq, and the deal to allow a state-owned Arab company to manage terminals at six U.S. ports.

Bush’s approval rating is far below those registered by three of the last four two-term presidents in February of their sixth year: Dwight Eisenhower (64 percent), Ronald Reagan (63.50 percent) and Bill Clinton (57 percent). Only Nixon, at 27.5 percent in February 1974 – six months before he resigned – was less popular than Bush is now.

Bush’s slide is prompting many GOP lawmakers to abandon him as they face tough elections in November. The president hasn’t lost Congress yet, several analysts said, but he’s close to it.

“He hasn’t been in a position for some time to press successfully most of the controversial issues on which the country is divided, and there’s substantial opposition in Washington,” said Thomas E. Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a center-left Washington think tank. “We saw that on Social Security reform. We’re likely to see it on immigration reform. There are enormous obstacles in the proposal to make the tax cuts permanent.”

The White House faced near-revolt among Republicans last week over the administration’s approval of a deal to allow Dubai Ports World, a company owned by the United Arab Emirates, to manage terminals at six ports.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., initially blasted the deal as a potential threat to national security. Rank-and-file Republicans followed their leaders, co-sponsoring legislation with Democrats to give Congress a say over the deal. While Frist and Hastert later tempered their remarks, most other Hill Republicans haven’t.

Bush was asked about the poll Tuesday by ABC News. His answer:

“If I worried about polls, I would be – I wouldn’t be doing my job. And, look, I fully understand that when you do hard things, it creates consternation at times. And, you know, I’ve been up in the polls, and I’ve been down in the polls. … I know the American people want somebody to stand on principle, decide – make decisions and stand by them, and to lead this world toward a more peaceful tomorrow. And I strongly believe we are doing that.”