After the first indictment against the Bush White House came down on Friday, there have been three national polls. None of them offer the Bush gang much in the way of encouragement.
A new SurveyUSA poll asked about Scooter Libby’s perjury and his motivation for lying. A plurality said they believe “Libby lied to the grand jury because he was told to lie by a superior.” (His superiors include a pretty small universe of people.) Moreover, the same poll asked respondents whether Dick Cheney is likely to finish the next four years as Vice President. Oddly enough, more than a third (35%) believe Cheney will “leave office before the end of the term.” (Even stranger, about one in five Republicans believe this too.)
Next up, the Washington Post did a national poll showing that American are getting a little tired of Republican ethics scandals.
A majority of Americans say the indictment of senior White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby signals broader ethical problems in the Bush administration, and nearly half say the overall level of honesty and ethics in the federal government has fallen since President Bush took office, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News survey.
The poll, conducted Friday night and yesterday, found that 55 percent of the public believes the Libby case indicates wider problems “with ethical wrongdoing” in the White House, while 41 percent believes it was an “isolated incident.” And by a 3 to 1 ratio, 46 percent to 15 percent, Americans say the level of honesty and ethics in the government has declined rather than risen under Bush.
In the aftermath of the latest crisis to confront the White House, Bush’s overall job approval rating has fallen to 39 percent, the lowest of his presidency in Post-ABC polls. Barely a third of Americans — 34 percent — think Bush is doing a good job ensuring high ethics in government, which is slightly lower than President Bill Clinton’s standing on this issue when he left office.
That’s right, Republicans, voters now see Bush as worse than Clinton for ensuring high ethics in government.
But the real smackdown for the White House comes by way of the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.
For example, a record high of 55% said they believe Bush’s presidency has been “a failure.” Looking ahead to the next five years, Americans aren’t optimistic about a Bush rebound — the same 55% said the rest of Bush’s presidency will also be a failure.
On the Plame scandal, a combined 76% said Scooter Libby’s involvement in the scandal was wrong (45% said illegal , 31% said unethical). Perhaps more importantly, 55% said they believe Dick Cheney was aware of Libby’s actions.
But the real kicker came when the poll asked respondents whether they believed the White House “deliberately misled the American public about whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.” An all-time high of 53% said Bush deliberated misled the nation.
In other words, a majority of the country believes the president intentionally lied the nation into war. What’s more the percentage of people who agree has steadily increased since April, suggesting that more people are inclined to believe the president was lying as time goes on.
That’s a tough number to spin.