On the May 15 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, chief White House correspondent Jim Angle uncritically reported White House senior adviser Karl Rove's assertion that President Bush's “personal approval rating is around 60 percent.” But as Media Matters for America previously noted, an examination of recent polling shows that Bush's favorability ratings have, in fact, been in the 30s and 40s in 2006, not the 60s. The most recent poll to find Bush's favorability rating at 60 percent or above was conducted in February 2005.

From the May 15 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume:

ANGLE: Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, said today there is no question that the war in Iraq is largely responsible for the president's low approval ratings.

ROVE [video clip]: Look, we're -- we're in a sour time, and I readily admit it. I mean, being in a middle of a war where people turn on their television sets and see brave men and women dying is not something that makes people happy and optimistic and upbeat.

ANGLE: While the president's job approval is suffering, he says the president's personal approval rating is around 60 percent. Rove says that, along with Republican stands on strong defense and complete victory in the war on terror, means Republicans will do fine in the fall elections because they stand for something.