Disfavor for Bush Hits Rare Heights

Carter and Reagan at their worst moments did not face a public as hostile as the one confronting Bush. Lyndon B. Johnson at the height of Vietnam had the disapproval of 52 percent of the public. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Gerald R. Ford never had disapproval ratings reach 50 percent.

Truman and Nixon remain the most unpopular modern presidents, though barely. Truman's disapproval rating reached 67 percent in January 1952 and matched Bush's 65 percent a month later. Nixon reached 66 percent on Aug. 5, 1974, four days before he resigned amid Watergate. George H.W. Bush came close before losing his bid for reelection in 1992, with 64 percent disapproval.

The current president, though, has endured bad numbers longer than Nixon or his father did and longer than anyone other than Truman. His disapproval rating has topped 50 percent for more than two years. And although Truman hit 67 percent and 65 percent once each within a month-long period, Bush has hit his high three times in the past 14 months.

Bush advisers clutch at Truman as if he were a political life preserver. If Bush has experienced a similar collapse in public support while in office, they hope he will enjoy the same post-presidential reassessment that has made Truman look far better today than in his time. A 2004 poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner found that 58 percent of Americans viewed Truman favorably.

And the president's team takes solace in the fact that the public holds Congress in low esteem, too. More than half disapproved of Congress generally, and Democrats in particular, in the latest Post-ABC survey, though their ratings were still better than Bush's.

The deep antipathy to Bush has fueled grass-roots support for impeachment. Democrats have resolved not to do that, remembering the division when a Republican Congress impeached Bill Clinton in 1998 for perjury and obstruction of justice to cover up his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky. His public support, though, never fell as far as Bush's. Clinton's worst disapproval rating, 51 percent, came during his first term, and he soared to his highest approval rating days after the Lewinsky scandal broke.

As much as Bush advisers dismiss polls, their predecessors in the White House said public rejection invariably drags down the whole institution. "It colors everything you can do," Donatelli said. "Psychologically, it wears on you."

Caddell describes a White House down in the polls in one word: "Awful." "People start going through the motions," he added. "The energy is gone."

Assistant polling director Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.