28 Percent

On May 1, President Bush vetoed a bill which would have provided funding for continued military operations in Iraq, but which would have set a timeline for the occupation of Iraq to end and for American troops to come home. That evening, he attacked congressional Democrats in a televised speech to the nation.

On May 2 and 3, Newsweek conducted a poll to find out, among other things, how Americans feel about Bush. The news for Bush, and by extension for Republicans, is not good.

It’s hard to say which is worse news for Republicans: that George W. Bush now has the worst approval rating of an American president in a generation, or that he seems to be dragging every ’08 Republican presidential candidate down with him. But According to the new NEWSWEEK Poll, the public’s approval of Bush has sunk to 28 percent, an all-time low for this president in our poll, and a point lower than Gallup recorded for his father at Bush Sr.’s nadir. The last president to be this unpopular was Jimmy Carter who also scored a 28 percent approval in 1979.

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A majority of Americans believe Bush is not politically courageous: 55 percent vs. 40 percent. And nearly two out of three Americans (62 percent) believe his recent actions in Iraq show he is “stubborn and unwilling to admit his mistakes,” compared to 30 percent who say Bush’s actions demonstrate that he is “willing to take political risks to do what’s right.”

Bush is weak and isolated. His political health is entirely due to the choices he has made. He has put himself in this position. It is time for Democrats to finish off him and his party. Don't back down on the need to end the occupation of Iraq. Keep pushing him to do the right thing. Either he will do it, and the troops will come home, or he will stay his disastrous course and doom his presidency and his party.