And Nobody's Happy

12/18/2007

By Richard Wolf  in USA TODAY: As President Bush and Congress battle on the budget, homeland security and the war in Iraq, Americans blame both Republicans and Democrats for the impasse.

By more than 2-to-1 margins, they give the president, congressional Democrats and congressional Republicans unfavorable ratings in a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll released Monday. While Bush's ratings have been poor for most of the past two years, the two parties in Congress hit new lows in the poll.

"The American people just decided that Washington is either incompetent or irrelevant," said Frank Luntz, who has conducted polls for Republicans. "Republicans made promises they didn't keep, and Democrats made promises they couldn't keep. And now it's a pox on all their houses."

The president's 65% disapproval rating is his lowest since July, despite a decline in violence in Iraq, a Middle East peace conference and victories over congressional Democrats on the 2008 budget...

Donald Will, 64, of Stuart, Fla., a self-described liberal, gave poor ratings to both sides in the poll.

"I personally feel we've lost control of our government," he said. "The president is going about his business as if he was a monarch. And to be in Congress, you basically have to be a eunuch."