How low can he go?

(Photo from Newsweek. What did we do to deserve it?) 36% approve of the job the president is doing. In case you're inclined to dismiss that as a mainstream media blip, Fox News Poll, puts him at 36% too. (Newsweek bizarrely describes Bush as "a leader who rode comfortably to reelection just a year ago." Comfortably? 51% Bush to 49% Kerry, with suspicious results in the state that determined the election?)

But the burning question is, how low can he go? Pollwise, suggests Kung Fu Monkey (via Slacktivist) he really hasn't hit bottom, yet...

John: Hey, Bush is now at 37 percent approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is --

Tyrone: 27 percent.

John: ... you said that immmediately, and with some authority.

Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27 percent of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5 percent of Democrats voted for him. That's crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27 percent Crazification Factor in any population.

But indecency-wise, he really can't get lower or more desperate:

"These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them."

Yes, the man who harbors a known traitor in the White House accuses his critics of treason. But this was the tough new offensive we heard about last week -- Bush was going to "hit back" at his critics (Steve Soto calls this the Lying Bastards Tour):

In a Veterans Day speech at an Army depot here, Mr. Bush made his most aggressive effort to date to counter the charge that he had justified taking the United States to war by twisting or exaggerating prewar intelligence.

OK, but he gave the same speech he gave last month (via Atrios), adding only a few new accusations that have been completely decimated in the last 24 hours, first by the reliable Think Progress and then by the Washington Post.

President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.

Neither assertion is wholly accurate.

I'll be interested to hear how this plays out on Meet the Press, etc., tomorrow, but I won't have the stomach to listen to it myself.