It's gotten no mention today, but the newly-released USA Today poll marks the first time in the poll's history -- and maybe in any poll's history -- that a plurality of Americans have disapproved of the way Bush is handling terrorism.
As I've argued in the past, numbers on terrorism, since the issue is necessarily out of sight, are a direct reflection of certain characteristics voters either do or do not perceive in the president. Strength, decisiveness, competence -- all they can do is evaluate how personally able he appears. And it seems that perceptions on that front are changing, even in Bush's perennial bastions of personal strength. If he can't rely on terrorism and toughness, he can't rely on anything at all.
