A new new low

It's almost a new low for ANY presidency.

President George W. Bush's public approval rating has fallen to 32 percent, a new low for his presidency, a CNN poll showed on Monday.

The survey also showed that 60 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job.

Bush's poll numbers have languished below 40 percent in the last couple of months, hit by growing public opposition to the Iraq war, his support for a now-abandoned plan for a Dubai firm to take over major U.S. port operations and American anger over gas prices now topping $3 a gallon at the pump.

So getting rid of Andy Card didn't make people like George Bush again, huh?

But Josh Bolten has a plan. And that plan appears to be to lure back conservatives who can no longer bring themselves to support Bush. Of course that means another push to make permanent the tax cuts on capital gains and stock dividends, even though such cuts favor the rich and offer no benefit whatsoever to the poor, and have led to record budget deficits.

"We need all these financial TV shows to be talking about how great the economy is, and that only happens when their guests from Wall Street talk about it," said a presidential adviser. "This is very popular with investors, and a lot of Republicans are investors."

Another part of the plan is to change Bush's story on immigration from supplying businesses with extremely cheap labor to getting tough on border security.

This is an unabashed play to members of the conservative base who are worried about illegal immigration. Under the banner of homeland security, the White House plans to seek more funding for an extremely visible enforcement crackdown at the Mexican border, including a beefed-up force of agents patrolling on all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). "It'll be more guys with guns and badges," said a proponent of the plan. "Think of the visuals. The President can go down and meet with the new recruits. He can go down to the border and meet with a bunch of guys and go ride around on an ATV."

Essentially the administration plans to start using Latinos as whipping boys. The GOP has to win back conservative voters who sleep with guns under their pillows, worried about the security of their plasma TVs and rider mowers. And, let's face it, most Latinos weren't going to vote Republican anyway.

Sure that means that the guest-worker program ends up on the list of failed initiatives with the overhaul of social security, but when less than one of every three voters approves of your job performance, sometimes you have to cut bait.

Let's go to the presidential approval-rating scoreboard (drumroll, please):

Bush: 32 percent
Nixon: 27 percent (November 1973)

It's getting closer, folks. And with the sage advice Bush offered citizens concerned about the high price of oil, it promises to get closer (unless you think watching Bush ride around on an ATV in the Arizona desert is going to make people forget about the war he started in Iraq, the price of fuel, extraordinary rendition, the mess that is New Orleans, the Medicare Part D mess, the No Child Left Behind mess, the fact that Osama bin Laden is still on the loose and that the NSA is trying to find him by illegally listening to our phone calls):

Bush's response to the gas crisis has been to warn Americans to expect a tough summer, vow that price gouging will not be tolerated and try to promote energy alternatives that will take years to get to consumers.

I guess Americans can go ahead an expect a "tough" winter too. Well, everyone but Lee Raymond.