USA Today puts Chimpy’s current pathetic approval ratings in historical perspective, and it doesn’t look good, despite the self-delusion of the apparent self-medicating leader of the free world continuing to behave as if he has a mandate.

They only demo he has to cling on is his “base” of wingnuts — 80% of Republicans still approve of the performance of the Chimperor, while independents have peeled away, with only 28% approval and a measly 7% among [dysfunctional] Democrats.

When we visited The Sixth Floor Museum/Dealey Plaza on Wed (I’ll post pics when I return to NC), one of the placards in the museum noted that Kennedy’s lowest approval rating was 56%. As the article notes, this was in September 1963, two months before his assassination, and people were queasy about U.S. involvement in Vietnam, as well as civil rights issues, the Cold War, etc. Bush is beyond a lame duck.

The genius of Karl Rove is that he was able to keep sheeple poll numbers from free fall (along with back pocket help from Diebold on election day) long enough to secure this second term for his hero. Bush may be lucky that he cannot run for re-election; but congressional candidates will have to decide whether cozying up to this clown is a net negative, even in Red states.

How dangerous is 37% job approval?

• Bush need look no farther than his father, George H. W. Bush, who struggled with a sluggish economy in 1992. His job approval hit 39% in February, and in November he was voted from office.

• Carter, hurt by the Iran hostage crisis, was at 37% in September 1980. Two months later, he lost his re-election bid.

• Ford, who succeeded Nixon, grappled with a falling economy and high inflation. He spent much of 1975 with approval percentages in the 30s and lost to Carter in ’76.

• Nixon saw his approval rating plummet to 31% in the summer of 1973 as the nation followed the Watergate hearings. He resigned a year later.

• Johnson, stymied by the Vietnam War, hit 36% in March 1968, the month he decided not to seek re-election.

• Truman, beset by the unpopular Korean War, was at 23% in January 1952, when he chose not to run again.

Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy were the only two presidents in the past 50 years to never fall below 40% approval. Eisenhower’s low was 49% in 1960, shortly after a U.S. spy plane was shot down by the Soviets.

Can he hit Truman level lows? At this rate, anything seems possible, yet we have to live with this incompetent “dry” drunk until January 2009? How will we make it?