Russ Maheras writes…
I can't figure out why Democrats gloat so much about Bush's disapproval ratings. Democrats control both the House and the Senate, and their ratings are worse than Bush's.
Democrats gloat about as much about Bush's disapproval ratings as Republicans do when it's a Democrat whose numbers are in the commode. In this case, it's vindication, it's a big "I told you so," it's a big slap at all those who told us that the war would pay for itself, there were weapons of mass destruction, tax cuts for the rich would help the lower class, it was "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, etc. No one in politics ever misses an opportunity to do a happy dance when the other side is losing big.
The difference between a low approval rating for Congress and one for Bush is that the latter affects the upcoming election. True, Bush isn't running but a guy who advocates many (most?) of his policies is. Come October, will John McCain still be defending all those Bush decisions that even diehard Republicans now regret? Or to distance himself from the guy with the (by then) 75%+ disapproval rating, will McCain be sounding like Keith Olbermann trashing the Bush administration? My own guess is that once McCain has locked up the nomination, gotten what he can get in campaign contributions from the extreme right and dodged the threat of a significant "third party" Conservative draining votes from him, we're going to see McCain move sharply to the left.
Either that or we're going to see that photo of him hugging George W. more often that we saw the one of Britney Spears minus her undies.
In the meantime, America may disapprove of the current Congress but they're going to vote to re-elect 95% of it. I don't like it either but they always do.