A new poll provides yet another indication that President George Bush may be suffering from a credibility problem from which it may be impossible to recover:
The latest USA Today/Gallup poll finds more than 6 in 10 Americans critical of President George W. Bush on the leak controversy. The more closely people are following the issue, the more likely they are to say he did something illegal rather than unethical. The poll also shows that 37% of Americans continue to approve of Bush’s job performance, unchanged from last month. While that is a low rating — and among the lowest of the Bush administration — it represents no change in four Gallup polls conducted since the end of February.
So Gallup’s poll shows that the mini-scandal over the leak controversy hasn’t further eroded the President’s eroding support. But it is finding that people are starting to conclude that he’s not being above board with them. MORE from Gallup:
Overall, 63% of Americans believe Bush did something either illegal (21%) or unethical (42%), while 28% say he did nothing wrong.
The more closely people are following the issue, the more likely they are to say Bush did something illegal rather than unethical, though expert opinion suggests that Bush has the authority to declassify information and thus his actions could not have been illegal. The less attentive respondents are more likely to think Bush did something unethical rather than illegal.
The percentage of Americans who say Bush did nothing wrong is not affected by how closely they are following the issue. The least attentive group is much more likely to express no opinion (21%) than either of the two more attentive groups (2% to 4%).
Views are highly correlated with party affiliation. Sixty-one percent of Republicans say Bush did nothing wrong, while only 18% of independents and 8% of Democrats agree. On the other hand, 30% of Republicans say Bush did something unethical or illegal, compared with 70% of independents and 85% of Democrats.
In other words, many Republicans are giving him the benefit of the doubt, or support him because they believe whatever explanation he gives. But even there…he’s suffering a significant erosion in credibility (30 percent) among his own party.
And independents and Democrats? Once again we see a presidency that does not have the support of Democrats and has lost independent voters in droves. On issue after issue the common demoninator seems to be credibility — perhaps even moreso than the latest political buzzword, “incompetence.” None of this suggests that the prospects for recovery are good — and there are three more years to go…more opportunities for erosion….
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.