Confidence in Bush at all-time low (WPost poll just out)

[kstewart33]

These numbers are terrible for Bush.

By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, January 22, 2007; 10:00 AM

President Bush will deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday at the weakest point of his presidency, facing deep public dissatisfaction over his Iraq war policies and eroding confidence in his leadership, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

With a major confrontation between Congress and the president brewing over Iraq, Americans overwhelmingly oppose Bush's plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to the conflict. By wide margins they prefer that congressional Democrats, who now hold majorities in both chambers, rather than the president, take the lead in setting the direction for the country.

Iraq dominates the national agenda, with 48 percent of Americans calling the war the single most important issue they want Bush and the Congress to deal with this year. No other issue rises out of single digits. The poll also finds that the public trusts congressional Democrats over Bush to deal with the conflict by a margin of 60 percent to 33 percent.

The president will use his speech to try to rally public opinion behind the troop deployment plan, but during the past 10 days he has made no headway in changing public opinion. The Post-ABC poll shows that 65 percent of Americans oppose sending more troop to Iraq; it was 61 percent immediately after the president unveiled the plan on Jan. 10 in a nationally televised address.

The Senate plans to take up a nonbinding bipartisan resolution opposing the president's new plan for troop deployments. But many Democrats in both chambers advocate even stronger measures designed to block the deployment of the additional troops, including capping the number of troops at their levels of Jan. 1 or putting strings on the money for the new troops. They would have broad initial public support to do so: 59 PERCENT OF ALL AMERICANS, INCLUDING MORE THAN A QUARTER OF REPUBLICANS, WANT CONGRESS TO TRY TO BLOCK THE PRESIDENT'S PLAN TO SEND MORE TROOPS.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/22/AR2007012200236_pf.html

[Iwasthere]

1. HUH? 33 % is NOT dropping...

.. I keep seeing these stories, "* approval dropping again", "Aproval sinking even further", "Numbers going down" further further and further and yet still at 33 %???????????????????? Does anyone else notice this? If his numbers dropped everytime they actually said they did he would be at 1 % by now.

[windbreeze]

2. yes, and the only thing I can figure is....

this must be what they call fuzzy math...??
wb