Matt Ortega

President Bush set an all-time disapproval rating record in the CNN/Gallup polling by breaking the 70 percent mark to become the most unpopular president in modern American history.

“No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president’s disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark,” said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

“Bush’s approval rating, which stands at 28 percent in our new poll, remains better than the all-time lows set by Harry Truman and Richard Nixon (22 percent and 24 percent, respectively) but even those two presidents never got a disapproval rating in the 70s,” Holland added. “The previous all-time record in CNN or Gallup polling was set by Truman, 67 percent disapproval in January 1952.” [original emphasis]

Marc Ambinder posted a graphic that shows a steady decline of Republican youth support in the last three presidential cycles, and a steady increase in Democratic affiliation, according to surveys conducted by Pew Research Center. These numbers show Democrats leading Republicans in party identification of 18 to 29 year olds by a staggering 25 point margin. Republicans dropped seven points in four years.

Notes Ambinder:

Consider: Voters under 30 in the Midwest are twice as likely to call themselves Democrats as they are to identify as Republicans. 63% of women under age 30 identify as Democrats versus just 28% who call themselves Republicans. Democrats even have the affiliation of a majority of young men.

And the widely held belief that the young are more liberal and grow more conservative with age is just unfounded.

A potential objection: that old canard, that young people are liberal and become more conservative? The historical data doesn’t support it. When Bill Clinton was elected, a plurality of people under 30 identified themselves as Republicans. Same thing when Ronald Reagan was elected. Politically, today’s cohort of 18-to-29 year olds came of age during the Bush presidency. It has turned them into Democrats.

The future does not look bright for Republicans if this trend continues. George W. Bush may have delivered a generation of voters to the Democrats, and sewed the seeds of destruction for the Republican Party.

Read the full report from Pew Research Center for People and the Press.

In the New York Times on Sunday, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is unable to find a job after he was forced to resign from his post last year.

He has, through friends, put out inquiries, they said, and has not found any takers. What makes Mr. Gonzales’s case extraordinary is that former attorneys general, the government’s chief lawyer, are typically highly sought.

The Times report states that Gonzales has not held a full-time job since he left the Bush administration in utter disgrace over the politicized firings of U.S. attorneys, warrantless domestic surveillance, and institutionalized torture. Instead, Gonzales is living off paid speeches and the lecture circuit — speaking engagements that often draw protests.