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ShareNEW YORK: US President George W Bush's job approval ratings have hit a career low amid continued public skepticism about the Iraq war, according to a new poll.
Just 38 per cent of Americans now approve of Bush's overall performance in office; it's the lowest mark of his presidency, albeit by a single point. Sixty per cent disapprove of how he's handling his job, matching the highest disapproval of his tenure, the ABC News/Washington Post poll said.
One of the primary drags on the President's job approval rating, the polls show, has been the public's negative assessment of the war in Iraq, and in this poll 58 per cent say the war was not worth fighting, a majority sentiment for the past 16 months.
The President's overall job numbers are little changed from a month ago and are about what they were last fall, before they briefly improved following the December parliamentary elections in Iraq.
Also similar to his ratings in the fall, a striking feature of the President's predicament is the intensity of sentiment against him.
Today, just 20 per cent of Americans 'strongly' approve of his work in office, while more than twice as many, 47 per cent, strongly disapprove. At the start of Bush's second term, he had the same number of strong supporters and strong opponents, the poll shows.
The change since that time, ABC said, has come both from increased opposition among independents and Democrats as well as less intense support from his Republican base.
