John of Powerline provides
a little perspective about the President's allegedly hemmorhaging support at home.
If we look at President Bush's approval ratings over the last year, a period of time when his standing has supposedly plummeted, the results are actually rather consistent. In December 2005, Bush's approval rating stood at 45%, with disapproval at 54%. This was at the end of what Bush described in his State of the Union speech, correctly, as a pretty good year in Iraq. In Rasmussen's most recent survey, after a year of relentless bad news from Iraq, Bush scores 42% positive and 56% negative--a swing of a mere two to three points.
John speculates that 10-15 of the 5o% who disapprove are disenchanted Republicans angry about immigration and the budget --or think the war isn't being fought aggressively enough. Sounds plausible to me, leading to the conclusion:
Bush is not in a great position going into his last two years, but not in a terrible position, either.
So not only are we not losing in Iraq, we're not really losing at home either.
