New Zogby poll: approval up; 49% think Pres. has power to authorize spying

[wildflower]

This surprised me. It seems to contradict the Gallup poll?

A narrow plurality of likely voters nationwide believe President Bush acted within his Constitutional powers when he authorized the interception of international communications without the approval of a federal judge, but the public is closely divided on the issue, a new Zogby Interactive poll shows.

Nearly half – 49% - said they think he has the power to authorize the intercepts, while 45% said he does not, the survey showed.

snip

Asked if the President’s actions made Americans more safe or less safe, 50% said the nation was safer because of his actions, while 18% said the actions put the country more at risk and 26% said it made no difference in our level of safety.

snip

The controversy, just days old, has not harmed the President, whose job approval rating has improved from a low of 38% earlier this month to 44% now - this as the nation has seen robust economic growth and the Iraq parliamentary elections last week were conducted with little violence and high voter turnout.

see the rest at http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1053