President George Bush’s approval rating has hit a new low in a new poll — as public opposition to the Iraq war reaches a new high:
Opposition to the Iraq war has reached a record high, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, a development likely to complicate President Bush’s efforts to hold together Republican support as the Senate begins debate this week on Pentagon priorities.
Bush’s approval rating has reached a new low: 29%.
In the survey, taken Friday through Sunday, one in five Americans say the increase in U.S. forces in Iraq since January has made the situation there better. Half say it hasn’t made a difference.
More than seven in 10 favor removing nearly all U.S. troops from Iraq by April.
But Bush & Co. have a small window of opportunity…very small…and it could close rapidly:
Still, 55% say Congress should wait to develop a new policy on Iraq until Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, delivers a promised assessment in September; 40% say Congress should act now.The White House is scrambling to prevent more defections among Republicans in the debate over the defense authorization bill, a platform for amendments on the war. Such senior GOP senators as Richard Lugar of Indiana and Pete Domenici of New Mexico in recent days have called on Bush to change course in Iraq.
Taken together it indicates that September will be a pivotal month.
If past administration official pronouncements are any indication, it’s unlikely Petraeus’ pronouncement will put things in a gloomy light. But with poll numbers like in this one, it’s unlikely that even if he announces major improvements many Americans will change their view that its time to head to some kind of conclusion.
Politics and policies aside, there truly seems to be “Bush fatigue” and “war fatigue” on the part of many Americans — components aggravated by the Bush administration’s major credibility problem on many fronts involving many controversies.
Outlook: all Bush and the GOP can hope for is that things poll numbers don’t get much worse. If they remain where they are now, at this point, it would be a positive for them. Support for Bush and the war are unlikely to start steadily climbing, no matter what the report in September.
And if that happens, as is likely, Bush will probably face many more Republican defections or at least GOPers starting to find ways to show independence from the White House, perhaps on other issues so they can show voters they are not glued to one of the most unpopular administrations in American history.
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.