from Ruy Teixeira at Center for American Progress.
Wow! Not only has Bush's approval rating on handling the war on terrorism been dropping like a stone, the Annenberg Election Survey has now measured it in net negative territory: 46 percent approval/50 percent disapproval. That's a first and a very significant first. It means Bush's area of greatest strength is rapidly turning into political liability.
And check out the internals on this question: 41 percent/53 percent among independents, 41 percent/56 percent among 18 to 29-year-olds, 41 percent/56 percent among Hispanics, and 40 percent/54 percent among moderates.
The poll also finds the public now saying that the soldiers at Abu Ghraib followed orders (48 percent), rather than acted on their own (30 percent). That's a switch from two weeks ago when it was 47 percent/31 percent the other way....snip...
These numbers are bad enough, but the new CBS News data are, if anything, even worse. Consider this one: only 30 percent now say that the country is headed in the right direction, compared to 65 percent who say that it is off on the wrong track. The latter is the highest number ever recorded by the CBS News poll since it started asking this question in the mid-1980s. As the CBS News polling analysis puts it: "The last time the percentage that said the country was on the wrong track was as high as it is now was back in November 1994. Then, Republicans swept into control of both houses of Congress for the first time in decades."http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=83165