This Is Bush’s Legacy, Right Here

From today’s New York Times:

Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll.

In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,” up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002.

Although the public mood has been darkening since the early days of the war in Iraq, it has taken a new turn for the worse in the last few months, as the economy has seemed to slip into recession. There is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant problems.

A majority of nearly every demographic and political group--Democrats and Republicans, men and women, residents of cities and rural areas, college graduates and those who finished only high school--say the United States is headed in the wrong direction. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said the country was worse off than five years ago; just 4 percent said it was better off.

As The Carpetbagger Report’s Steve Benen remarks, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, “It’s probably not the ideal time for John McCain to run on a more-of-the-same presidential platform.”

READ MORE: “61% of Historians Rate the Bush Presidency Worst,” by Robert S. McElvaine (History News Network).