Bush's image bites dust as most Americans believe him to be hiding truth
June 30, 2004
By Rupert Cornwell
Washington - George Bush's battle to return to the White House has been dealt a severe blow with the release of a poll showing his job rating was at its lowest point ever.
According to the latest New York Times/CBS poll released yesterday, the US president's job rating has fallen to its lowest of his term, with just 42% approving of his performance, compared to 51% who disapprove.
And while Bush was making a speech on the sunlit shores of the Bosphorus in Turkey extolling the virtues of a free and democratic Iraq, a separate survey showed that the transfer of power in Baghdad is regarded by Americans as a failure rather than a success.
A CNN/Gallup poll found six out of 10 people believed that Monday's hasty handover - at a moment when Iraq remained so perilous - was a sign of failure. Just a third regarded it as a sign of success.
Major questions still remain about Bush's handling of the war, challenging his image of straight-dealing and plain talking.
Of those polled by the New York Times and CBS, 59% said Bush was hiding something in his public statements on Iraq, compared to 18% who thought he was telling the full truth.
A further 20% considered the president was "mostly lying".
By a more than three to one margin, Americans think the risk of terrorist attacks against the US has increased, rather than decreased, as a result of the March 2003 invasion - flatly contradicting Bush's assertions that the removal of Saddam Hussein had made the world
a safer place.
By a similar margin, they say the US involvement in Iraq is breeding, not eliminating, terrorists.
But Bush's sagging approval ratings - now on a par with those of other incumbent presidents defeated since 1950 - do not mean the poll is a hosanna to his Democratic challenger, John Kerry.
Almost 40% of those surveyed have no opinion of Vietnam War veteran Kerry.
Among those who do, more disapprove of Kerry than approve - a sign that the barrage of negative advertising by the Bush/Cheney campaign, depicting him as an untrustworthy flip-flopper, has had an impact.
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