Thirty Percent For Bush Soon?

A new CBS News poll shows Bush's approval rating at an all-time low of 34%.

From Agence France-Presse via Yahoo! News - In a mid-term election year, the Bush administration is in a sorry state, according to many analysts. His poll numbers are now as low as Richard Nixon's just before he had to resign over the Watergate scandal in 1974.

Did Nixon hit 34% just before resigning? Having done a little research, I find the story is wrong. The Harris Poll puts Nixon much lower.

President Nixon however (29%) was significantly less popular than President Bush is now.

Even though higher than Nixon's, this number is causing Republicans to rapidly distance themselves from Bush by opposing some of his actions.

What worries Republican party chiefs is that even support within the party is ebbing away.

Bush had not even left India before lawmakers started queuing to oppose the president's nuclear deal with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that would lift US restrictions on sharing civilian nuclear technology with India.

Opposition to his nuclear deal with India comes on top of the resistance lawmakers show about rubber stamping a US ports management deal with UAE.

More seriously, opposition to Dubai Ports World's takeover of British firm P and O, whose assets include operations at six US ports, remains strong despite Bush's support for the deal.

And there's always that little "response problem" Bush has thanks to hurricane Katrina.

The truth is, it is amazing more than 3 out of 10 Americans approve of Bush at all. Is that number approaching the wealthiest segment of society? The segment with all the tax breaks and subsidies? Just asking.