No Bounce for Bush

[[P O L L S]] * Weren’t the media just trumpeting George W. Bush’s climb back from his abysmal job performance ratings of last fall? Well, forget it. The latest poll released by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press shows that only 38 percent of Americans approve of Bush’s work in the White House, while 54 percent disapprove. That approval is up only two points since Pew’s November reading, and the disapproval figure has fallen by only one point. Not exactly cause for tipping back a few flutes of champagne in the West Wing. Bush’s continuing lack of public support might be traced, at least in part, to the subjects that Americans have been focusing on lately. When Pew asked respondents to say which stories have drawn their attention lately, those being surveyed answered:

● West Virginia mining disaster: 47 percent
● Situation in Iraq: 40 percent
● Bush authorizing wiretaps: 32 percent
● Floods in California: 20 percent
● Jack Abramoff bribes: 18 percent
● Samuel Alito’s congressional hearings: 14 percent

Undoubtedly, the prez would prefer that his fellow countrymen were more attentive to Alito’s Senate contretemps than to the Iraq war, which 52 percent of Americans (according to a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll) now say was not worth starting in the first place.

READ MORE: “The Ground Continues to Shift Toward Democrats,” by Jonathan Singer (MyDD).