Majority believe Bush did something illegal or unethical in leak case

April 11, 2006

[tag]Gallup[/tag] released a poll this morning on the public’s reaction to the latest [tag]leak[/tag] [tag]scandal[/tag]. The bad news for the [tag]White House[/tag] is that Americans strongly suspect Bush did something wrong. The good news for the White House is that the story has not yet captured their attention.

Overall, 63% of Americans believe [tag]Bush[/tag] did something either illegal (21%) or unethical (42%), while 28% say he did nothing wrong. While many more Democrats are critical, 3 in 10 Republicans also find that Bush did something illegal or unethical.

The more closely people are following the issue, the more likely they are to say he did something illegal rather than merely unethical.

The poll, conducted April 7-9, 2006, shows that just 25% of Americans are following the matter “very” closely, while another 39% are following the issue “somewhat” closely. Another 36% are not following the issue closely at all.

It is encouraging to see that 30% of rank-and-file Republicans believe Bush did something illegal or unethical in this controversy. That’s higher than I thought it’d be.

The same poll, however, found that Bush’s approval rating had not changed — it’s still 37% — from other recent Gallup surveys. I guess the 63% of Americans who believe Bush did something wrong in the leak case are the same 63% who disapprove of the president in general.

Speaking of polls, the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll shows more of the same for Bush — guess what, he’s still unpopular — but also offers Dems encouraging news for the midterm elections.

A majority of registered voters, 55 percent, say they plan to vote for the Democratic candidate in their House district, while 40 percent support the Republican candidate. That is the largest share of the electorate favoring Democrats in Post-ABC polls since the mid-1980s.

This grim news for the GOP is offset somewhat by the finding that 59 percent of voters still say they approve of their own representative. But even these numbers are weaker than in recent off-year election cycles and identical to support of congressional incumbents in June 1994 — five months before Democrats lost control of Congress to Republicans.

As Bush and the Republicans falter, Democrats have emerged as the party most Americans trust to deal with such issues as Iraq, the economy and health care. By 49 to 42 percent, Americans trust Democrats more than Republicans to do a better job of handling Iraq.

Democrats also hold a six-percentage-point advantage over the GOP (49 percent to 43 percent) as the party most trusted to handle the economy. Their lead swells to double digits on such as issues as immigration (12 points), prescription drug benefits for the elderly (28 points), health care (32 points) and dealing with corruption in Washington (25 points).

Dems even enjoy a narrow lead over the GOP on which party the public trusts more to handle the war on terrorism, 46% to 45%.

As for Bush, 45% support Russ Feingold’s censure resolution (53% oppose), and 33% support impeachment (66% oppose).

I’d like to see a breakdown of that 66% oppose impeachment:

Do you oppose impeachment because Dick Cheney would become president?

Do you oppose impeachment because it would be bad for the country?

Do you oppose impeachment because you have not heard of any act by the President that you think is impeachable?

Do you oppose impeachment because Bush is God’s anointed President and can’t be impeached?

  • C’mon, Mr. C.B., don’t pull a WaPo editorial page type spin on us and call this “good news” when in fact it seems that everyday Americans ARE finally starting to wake up and pay some attention to the medaciously incompetent Leaker-in-Chief!!

    If 25% in the survey are following the matter “very closely” and another 39% are following it “somewhat closely,” that adds up to 64% in my base-10 mathematics schema. Therefore, this is ALSO bad news for the White House and the LFBs occupying it.

  • it seems that everyday Americans ARE finally starting to wake up and pay some attention to the medaciously incompetent Leaker-in-Chief!!

    Well, you know me — I want everyone to be paying close attention to this!

    As for the WaPo editorial comparison, ouch. I hope my observation wasn’t that bad.

  • Their lead swells to double digits on such as issues as immigration (12 points),

    This poll directly contradicts the latest from Rasmussen.

    The latest Rasmussen Reports national opinion survey found that 37% of Americans now trust Republicans more than Democrats on the issue of immigration. Just 31% trust the Democrats more.

    Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not opining that Rasmussen is better than WaPo/ABC. I’m just curious if anyone here has any insight as to why the polls are so different, we’re talking about an 18 point swing here. What’s going on?

  • I really like what Analytical Liberal said, the poll numbers against the Bushies are swelling. The entire administration needs to go. We cannot afford 3 more years of these greedy and dangerous fanatics.

    People ARE starting to wake up. I am old enough to remember Watergate. This is worse, but the pattern is identical. Leaks, phone jamming…ad infinitem. The story keeps expanding, and Bush is worse than Richard Nixon by far. Nixon at least had a brain.

    Even though immigration issues are being used as a diversion, this story isn’t going away. Thank goodness!

  • “As for Bush, 45% support Russ Feingold’s censure resolution (53% oppose), and 33% support impeachment (66% oppose).”

    This tells me that the American people have utterly no idea
    how bad this president is, and aren’t going to find out. Five
    years after this disastrous administration, and only a third
    think he should be impeached? Isn’t that about the same
    proportion who thought Clinton should be impeached?

    Hopeless. The American people are hopeless.

  • “I’d like to see a breakdown of that 66% oppose impeachment:”

    I’ll step up to the plate on that one. I oppose impeachment because I think it would be bad for the country (and, yes, when I stop to think of it, because it would promote Dick Cheney). But I haven’t the slightest doubt that our president is a vagrant little sac of pus.

  • Rather than impeachment, I’d like to see a military mutiny – not a takeover, but something like the White House staff did during Nixon’s “troubled” last days: in this case imposing simple inaction on the executive for the duration.

  • As for Bush, 45% support Russ Feingold’s censure resolution (53% oppose), and 33% support impeachment (66% oppose).

    I’m not sure they framed the questions right on either issue. I’m not a statistician, but that series of questions seems iffy.

    Given that there are only two Congressional Dems — Feingold and Conyers — pushing either censure or impeachment those numbers aren’t horrible. If the party chose to make a strong principled case for either (I’m leaning toward impeachment), I think the country would come around.

  • If a few more Democrats would have the courage to listen to their guts rather than the polls, and begin to talk about impeachment or at least censure, then we might have a chance of saving our republic. I agrre that this is similar to Watergate, but if my memory serves, Nixon was undone in part as he began to fire underlings. W doesn’t do that, so it is harder to get anyone to talk. We need to wait for the criminal courts because Congress is in league with Bush. It might not happen without the help of Congress.

  • I’d really like to believe that 12 percent lead on trusting Democrats to deal with immigration is accurate, because using immigrants as a diversion the way they are doing is REALLY making things worse. If the Democrats stick to their guns and leave the Republicans hanging with the Sensenbrenner bill, so they’re seen as the ignorant Know-Nothings they are, we really can win with this. With a country as closely divided as we are, swinging away that small percentage of Latinos who voted for El Boosh before, would be a winning margin for us.

    As far as that 35% who continue to support Bush, I actually ran across some of them Sunday at a scale model contest (far righties are thick as locusts in central Texas in August in that hobby – they all like building Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht models for more than just the interesting paint schemes), and also met some righties (really more actual conservatives than righties) who said to me – quietyly – they were beginning to see why I have been yelling and pointing the past five years. Any progress helps!

    As to the 35%, there was one really ugly, fat trailer-park-type woman with the kind of face that has been so pinched in for so long it looks like a squeezed lemon, and she’s wearing a big cross on a chain and a T-shirt that says: “I’d rather be hunting with Dick Cheney than Ted Kennedy” – I mean, really, really ridiculously lacking in frontal lobes and opposable thumbs. And she kept moving through the crowd and sticking where I could see her as if she sensed there was a liberal in the elephant grass, despite my best efforts to avoid her. So finally I let her have it: “You are so ugly and stupid lady, I’d hate to see how ugly and stupid the moron you married is.” Wooooo! Talk about peeing in her Cheerios in public!! She damn near had a heart attack. And the nice thing was that just about everyone in hearing distance (which wasn’t far) laughed. (Sorta like here the day I let Bogie have two barrels of 16-guage deer load).

    I’m sorry, but some people are just asking for it. And it felt good to give it to her.

  • I heard or read a statistic that if it had not been for the gains in the immigration vote, Bush would have lost the last election. And though many could argue that the immigration issue is a big distraction to turn the eyes of the public and the press from the actual malfeasance of the Bushies and the other Repugs, they may be very sorry they awoke that sleeping giant. I was stunned at the power of that block of people; I wish they would come out against the war in the same numbers.

  • Tom Cleaver, Good for you! Best laugh I’ve had all day. Wish I had been there.

    Gracious, Leave it to the Repugs to take a Latino population, which would likely have voted Repug on the abortion issue, and blow it by declaring all Latinos (even their little children) felons. If Sensenbrenner and Tancredo weren’t so ugly I could kiss them (on second thought, belay that).

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