Falling and Laughing [UPDATED]

It's Monday, so that means new polls. Has Bush been able to turn his slide around? Is the Prez on the rebound? Apparently not. The newest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll gives Bush an all-time low approval rating of 37 percent. There are various other polls out there, and each one seems to plumb new depths for the Prez each week. I think some of us on the oopposite side of the political aisle look at these numbers positively because, during the run up to and beginning of the Iraq war, his numbers were not just immensely high, but they appeared to be bulletproof. Now it feels like the chickens have finally started to come home to roost. But what do Bush's new, low numbers mean? They're ridiculously low compared to the 90s where his numbers once existed, but I haven't really had an idea of how they rank historically.

Fortunately, Tim Grieve at Salon put these numbers into a historical context:

Another day, another round of bad poll numbers for the president: A new Newsweek poll has George W. Bush's approval rating down to 36 percent.

That's a record low for Bush's presidency, and it matches the worst number that Bill Clinton ever got. The good news for Bush? He's still a few ticks better off than his father was in 1992, and he's not quite in the territory that either Jimmy Carter or Richard Nixon occupied during their darkest days. Carter's approval rating hit 28 percent in the summer of 1979, and Nixon's bottomed out at 24 percent in August 1974.

Of course, Nixon resigned in August 1974. Bush still has 1,162 days to go.

So he ties Clinton, but he's still got a ways to go before experiencing Carter or Nixon levels. I wonder what Reagan's lowest rating was.

[UPDATE] In comments, Ron points out that Reagan's nadir was 35 percent. Via Media Matters, I found a chart with highs and lows for every president since Roosevelt (scroll down). Interestingly, Nixon's popularity never sunk as far as that of Harry Truman, who occupies the cellar at 22 percent.