Barbara Ferguson, Arab News

NEW YORK, 30 June 2004 — America’s approval of President Bush’s job at the helm of the country has reached the lowest level since the beginning of his presidency in January 2001: 51 percent say they disapprove of the way he’s handling the country.

According to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, published yesterday, “Americans are stiffening their opposition to the Iraq war, worried that the invasion could invite domestic terrorist attacks and are skeptical about whether the White House has been fully truthful about the war or about abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison.”

John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee is disliked more than he is liked, with more than 50 percent of the respondents saying Kerry says what he thinks voters want to hear, “suggesting that Mr. Bush has had success in portraying his opponent as a flip-flopper.”

The poll also implies that Americans felt Bush would do better than Kerry in directing the nation through a foreign crisis, although the NYT/CBS poll adds these “findings suggest that Americans are more comfortable entrusting their security to a president they know than with a relatively unknown challenger.”

The results show that Bush is not getting off easy, with evidence from those polled that his decision to lead America to a war against Iraq has left him in “a precarious political position.”

Forty-two percent of those polled said they approve of the job the president is doing. Pollsters say that in the last 25 years, presidents with job approval ratings below 50 percent in the spring of election years have lost the upcoming election. Bush’s father had a 34 percent approval rating at this time in 1992.

Forty-five percent said they have an unfavorable opinion of Bush, and 57 percent say he is leading the country in the wrong direction.

Those polled indicated a lack of trust in the president and his administration. Asked if they thought President Bush was telling the entire truth about the war in Iraq, or hiding something; 18 percent said they thought he was telling the entire truth, 59 percent believe he is “hiding something.”

Another question they asked about terrorism was if the US involvement in Iraq was “creating more, eliminating or not affecting terrorists who are planning to attack the US,” 55 percent of respondents said it was creating terrorists, 17 percent said eliminating terrorists and 21 percent said it was not affecting the terrorists.