Appearing on the March 1 edition of NBC's Today, MSNBC host Chris Matthews falsely suggested that President Bush had personal likeability numbers “going for him” until a recent CBS News poll showed them in decline. In fact, Bush's favorability ratings have been low for some time; they were low when Matthews said in November that “Everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs, maybe on the left.” Matthews also said that members of the military are “very loyal” to Bush, despite a recent Zogby International poll showing that most troops disagree with Bush's Iraq policies.

Matthews noted on Today that the CBS News poll, conducted February 22-26, found that only 29 percent of respondents said they have a “favorable” or “positive” view of Bush, compared with 53 percent who have an “unfavorable” view of the president. But while Bush's favorability ratings have been low for some time -- they have been in the mid-30s in the CBS poll since October, and most major polls have shown that consistent pluralities and, at times, the majority of Americans hold an unfavorable view of Bush -- Matthews suggested that the latest CBS poll result was “a staggering blow” that eliminated an issue that had until recently been a major asset to Bush:

MATTHEWS: It's [the CBS poll] terrible news for the president. Thirty-four percent job approval, 30 percent, even lower than that, on Iraq, so that number is pulling him down. And then, the number that really surprised me: 29 percent on personal approval. People don't like the president as much as they don't -- even more than they don't like his policies, which is a staggering blow because we all know that he's had two things going for him since he's been president: the war on terror, where he's gotten good numbers and now they are negative, and likeability. They're both gone now.

Despite the fact that Bush's favorability numbers have gradually declined over many months, Matthews responded incredulously when he first learned, from Newsweek senior White House correspondent Richard Wolffe during the February 28 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, that the CBS poll had found Bush's favorability rating to be so low:

WOLFFE: Well, the numbers were never very good anyway, but he managed to get through the election with bad numbers because he had a bad candidate against him. But you look at the curve of these numbers -- he tanked after Katrina, he hit another low after [Bush's failed Supreme Court nomination of] Harriet Miers. What we're seeing now is just that reminder of the lack of confidence. Twenty-nine percent of Americans have -- give him a positive, favorable rating. That's actually lower than his job approval, way lower than Bill Clinton. People don't think he is a nice guy anymore.

MATTHEWS: Wait a minute, you just jumped there. Are you sure of that last part?

WOLFFE: Absolutely.

MATTHEWS: They don't like him anymore.

WOLFFE: They don't like him anymore. His job --

MATTHEWS: Where do you find that in the numbers?

WOLFFE: It's right there in the poll. His job approval is higher than his personal numbers. Now, you might think that he'd be in a situation his father was, where people thought he was a nice guy but they didn't like the job. In fact, it's closer to where Bill Clinton was where they thought, “Well, there is a problem with this guy, but his job is slightly better.”

MATTHEWS: What do they think he is? Just what we used to call a smacked ass, a rich kid who got a job he shouldn't have had?

WOLFFE: I just think --

MATTHEWS: Is that what they think of him?

WOLFFE: You know --

MATTHEWS: Is it that bad?

WOLFFE: The thing that we have reported on him, from '99, when I first started covering him, was that he was basically a likable guy.

MATTHEWS: I thought that.

WOLFFE: As the country has got worse and worse in terms of Iraq, the likability factor is less and less relevant.

MATTHEWS: [Time magazine columnist] Margaret [Carlson], do you see that? I mean, I think everybody now knows what we're talking about. It's not just job approval. A lot of people we know can't do the job but we like them; a lot of people can do the job, we don't like them. But Richard is saying that his personal repute, what people think of him as a guy, if you will, is down, lower than what we think of his job.

Also on Today, while arguing that Bush's support for a proposed deal to allow a company owned by the government of Dubai to operate port terminals in six major U.S. cities “doesn't make sense” to the average American, Matthews claimed that those who are in the military are “very loyal” to Bush:

MATTHEWS: I keep trying to imagine the president at one of those rallies he holds, even in front of military men, who are very loyal to him, and saying, “And to make our ports secure, and to make you secure, we're gonna turn it over to an Arab government.” It doesn't work. The common-sense guy working in south Philly near the ports or in Baltimore looks over at the port and he says, “It's being run by the Arabs? It doesn't make sense.”

Matthews neglected to explain how the military's “loyal[ty]” to Bush squares with its apparent disapproval of Bush's Iraq policies. According to a Zogby poll conducted January 18-February 14, 72 percent of U.S. troops serving in Iraq believe that the U.S. should withdraw from Iraq within a year and, according to Zogby president and CEO John Zogby, 93 percent believe “removing weapons of mass destruction is not a reason for U.S. troops being there.”