Wash. Post: Cong. "Democrats in particular" have high disapproval -- in fact, disapproval of GOP much higher

An article in the July 25 edition of The Washington Post by staff writer Peter Baker asserted that despite President Bush's low approval numbers, "the president's team takes solace from the fact that the public holds Congress in low esteem too," adding that "[m]ore than half" of respondents in a Washington Post/ABC News poll taken July 18-21 "disapproved of Congress generally, and Democrats in particular." In fact, according to the Post/ABC poll, congressional Republicans have a substantially higher disapproval rating than congressional Democrats.

The Post/ABC poll found approval of Congress at 37 percent, with 60 percent disapproving, but it also found that congressional Republicans had a significantly higher disapproval rating than Democrats. Sixty-four percent of respondents disapproved "of the way the Republicans in Congress are doing their job," compared with 51 percent who disapproved of the Democrats' performance; 34 percent approved of congressional Republicans, while 46 percent approved of congressional Democrats.

From Baker's July 25 article in The Washington Post:

Bush advisers clutch at Truman as if he were a political life preserver. If Bush has experienced a similar collapse in public support while in office, they hope he will enjoy the same post-presidential reassessment that has made Truman look far better today than in his time. A 2004 poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner found that 58 percent of Americans viewed Truman favorably.

And the president's team takes solace in the fact that the public holds Congress in low esteem, too. More than half disapproved of Congress generally, and Democrats in particular, in the latest Post-ABC survey, though their ratings were still better than Bush's.

—R.C.