April 10, 2006 — President Bush's job approval rating is at a career low in this latest ABC News/Washington Post poll amid continued broad public skepticism about the Iraq war.
Just 38 percent 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 percent disapprove of how he's handling his job, matching the highest disapproval of his tenure.
One of the primary drags on the president's job approval rating has been the public's negative assessment of the war in Iraq, and in this poll 58 percent 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 percent of Americans "strongly" approve of his work in office, while more than twice as many, 47 percent, strongly disapprove. At the start of Bush's second term, he had the same number of strong supporters and strong opponents.
Everybody hates the president except a few whackjobs.
