You know why they don't want to play "The Blame Game?"

Because they'll lose. These are the results from a new CBS News poll:

38% Approve, 58% disapprove of Bush's handling of Katrina.

Atrios thinks:

There could be pictures of Bush with a goat, and 38% would approve, as long as it wasn't a gay goat.

Personally, I think those numbers are soft. I think Bush can dive below 30%, and below 20% is still not out of the question. But what I like about CBS news is their capacity for wry understatement:

President Bush’s image appears to have suffered in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The public now has lower confidence in his response to crisis, and his leadership in general.

Now, just 48% of Americans say Bush has strong qualities of leadership – the lowest number ever for the President in this poll.
Moreover, just 32% express “a lot” of confidence in the President’s ability to handle a crisis.

There has even been a decline in just the last week in the perception of the government’s ability to protect Americans from terrorist attacks – 40% now have little or no confidence, up from 26% a week ago.

Most Americans – 69% - point to cutbacks in spending on New Orleans' levees that had taken place in recent years as a factor in the flooding – including 45% who call that a major factor.

ETA: Hoffmania observes:

There has yet to be a poll post-disaster or post-calamity where the respondents didn't rally around the president and give him a spike in the approval ratings. Until now.

ETA, again: Oh man. It gets worse. In a summary of findings from the Pew Research Center:

Uncharacteristically, the president's ratings have slipped the most among his core constituents ­ Republicans and conservatives.

For the first time since the 9/11 terror attacks, a majority of Americans (56%) say it is more important for the president to focus on domestic policy than the war on terrorism.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Sept. 6-7 among 1,000 Americans, finds that the hurricane has had a profound psychological impact on the public. Fully 58% of respondents say they have felt depressed because of what's happened in areas affected by the storm.

Half of those polled (50%) say they have felt angry because of what happened in areas hard hit by the hurricane. But overall opinion on this measure obscures a substantial racial divide in reactions to the disaster ­ as many as 70% of African Americans say they have felt angry, compared with 46% of whites. Blacks are twice as likely as whites to know people directly affected by the hurricane and are generally much more critical of the government's response to the crisis.