Go, Stanford!

[[P R O T E S T S]] * The indignities just keep being heaped upon George W. Bush. First, a new poll conducted by GOP-biased FOX News shows him with a record-low job approval rating of 33 percent (down from 36 percent only two weeks ago), and with his support among fellow Republicans having sunk below 70 percent for the first time, to just 66 percent. (That’s down “almost 20 percentage points from this time last year when 84 percent of Republicans approved,” FOX reports. “Among Democrats, 11 percent approve today, while 14 percent approved last April.”)

Then, during this week’s four-day visit to California, Dubya gets the cold shoulder from Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a guy who formerly embraced him. However, that was before the guv bungled a raft of special-election issues and made the mistake of trying to cozy up to California’s right-wing minority. Now Arnold sees that there’s nothing to be gained by palling around with an unpopular prez, if he hopes to have any chance of winning re-election in November.

Finally, Bush’s planned call yesterday at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, where he was supposed to meet with university fellows, had to be rearranged after “more than 1,000 protesters converged around the Hoover tower. The White House said the protesters blocked the only road into the central area of the campus where Hoover is located ...” The event had to be moved instead to the home of former Secretary of State George Shultz, a Hoover distinguished fellow, who apparently lives “on the outer edge of campus.” As the San Jose Mercury News reported, “protesters said they were disappointed that the President would not see them and accused the President of sneaking around to avoid them.” Gee, ya think?

READ MORE: “Protests Force Bush to Relocate Hoover Meeting; Three Students Detained,” by Amit Arora (The Stanford Daily).