Reelection Honeymoon With Voters Eludes Bush

There are those who believe this site to be a bastion of liberal, lefty ideology, ever in search of bad news about the current administration. We claim no such bias. Nonetheless, we present the following.

President Bush prepares to start his second term with the lowest approval ratings of any just-elected sitting president in half a century, according to new surveys.


[The notable exception to Bush's unpopularity.]

A Gallup survey conducted for CNN and USA Today puts Bush's approval rating at 49% -- close to his preelection numbers. That's 10 to 20 points lower than every elected sitting president at this stage since just after World War II.

Bush's Gallup rating echoed a survey published last week by ABC News and the Washington Post, which put his approval rating at 48%. That poll also found that 56% of Americans believed the Iraq war was not worth fighting. Time magazine also put Bush's overall approval at 49%.

"The question is, what happened to the honeymoon?" asked Frank Newport, editor of the Gallup survey.

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