This New York Times' graph offer a telling look at the failure of Bush's presidency:
Bush has had precisely two serious and sustained bumps. One came after a horrifying attack on the country, the second after he launched a horrifying attack on Iraq. His presidency, then, has been vampiric in nature, thriving when the republic waned and the body counts mounted. He has received precisely no big boosts for domestic policy priorities or achievements. And the trend, after 9/11, is down, down, down. Not just a natural drift out of the stratosphere, but a plummet to the depths. Only three presidents in the 20th century reached Bush's lows of unpopularity. Carter and Nixon never recovered -- but they, at least, had the excuses of rampant corruption, stagflation, and the Iranian hostage crisis. Bush's unpopularity is entirely the fault of his own mismanagement. According to early reports, tonight's proposed salve will be a minor change to the marginal deductibility of employee benefits packages. That'll save him.
