Bush Approval Falls to 33%, Congress Earns Rare Praise
Dubai Ports Fallout
In the aftermath of the Dubai ports deal, President Bush's approval rating has hit a new low and his image for honesty and effectiveness has been damaged. Yet the public uncharacteristically has good things to say about the role that Congress played in this high-profile Washington controversy.
Most Americans (58%) believe Congress acted appropriately in strenuously opposing the deal, while just 24% say lawmakers made too much of the situation. While there is broad support for the way Congress handled the dispute, more Americans think Democratic leaders showed good judgment on the ports issue than say the same about GOP leaders (by 30%-20%). The latest survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted March 8-12 among 1,405 Americans, also finds:
* No evidence of a public backlash against foreign commercial and economic ties in the wake of the ports deal. A narrow majority (53%) has a negative view of foreign investors owning U.S. companies. But by 53%-36% more Americans view foreign companies investing in the United States as a good thing; there are no significant partisan differences on this issue.
* Bush's overall approval measure stands at 33%, the lowest rating of his presidency. Bush's job performance mark is now about the same as the ratings for Democratic and Republican congressional leaders (34% and 32%, respectively), which showed no improvement in spite of public approval of the congressional response to the ports deal.
* The president's personal image also has weakened noticeably, which is reflected in people's one-word descriptions of the president. "Honesty" had been the single trait most closely associated with Bush, but in the current survey "incompetent" is the descriptor used most frequently.
* A significantly higher percentage of Americans believe that Bush is "out of touch" with what is going on with the government than said that about former President Reagan during his second term, in August 1987. Fully 56% say that about Bush now, compared with 47% who expressed that view of Reagan nearly 20 years ago.
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