Hightower Lowdown

"Let me put it to you this way. I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style."
-- GEORGE W, NOVEMBER 2004

Bush quickly squandered his "capital," and his current numbers are in the ditch:

• Two-thirds of the public say that America is "off on the wrong track." -- Time poll, June 29
• 63% disapprove of Bush's handling of his job. -- AP-Ipsos poll, July 12
• 61% disapprove of the way Bush is handling the Iraq war; 56% say going to war there was the wrong thing to do; and 57% want either to bring all the troops home now (29%) or to decrease our troop commitment in Iraq (28%). -- Quinnipiac University poll, June 1
• In June, Quinnipiac asked Americans to choose the worst president since World War II. Bush was the runaway winner! He was named "worst" by 34% -- doubling the 17% vote for the runner-up, Dick Nixon.
• The Pew Research Center periodically asks people to choose among 18 one-word characterizations to best describe their impression of the president.
  • - top response in February 2005: "Honest"
  • - top response in March 2006: "Incompetent"
    (followed closely by "Idiot" and "Liar")

Bush's numbers are bad for him, but far worse, his performance as president (especially in Iraq) is drastically tarnishing America's image around the world. The Pew Global Attitudes Survey in June shows that the reputation of the U.S. has plummeted in 11 of the 14 nations polled.

• In Germany, favorable opinions of the U.S. fell from 78% in 2000 to only 37% today, and in Spain we're down from 50% to 23%.
• The story is even more alarming in the Muslim world. Only 30% of Indonesians have favorable opinions of our nation, down from 75% before Bush. In Pakistan, U.S. approval is only 27%, in Jordan it's 15%, and in Turkey it's 12%.