Here’s something that keeps popping into my head and popped with an extra burst with the news this morning that the latest Gallup poll — generally friendly to Bush — has him at an anemic 31% approval rating.
Given that pretty much all the polls now show the president mired in the mid- to low 30s, simple 
statistical probability would suggest that at one point in the not too distant future some poll will catch the president under 30% in the Dante-esque public opinion nether region of the 20s.
Mind you, I’m not saying that the president’s popularity will continue to fall into the 20s. The continuing descent is something like a mathematical limit. Each point lower digs deeper into the base of truly committed partisans and unquestioning hacks. So knocking off each new point on the way down requires ever greater displays of incompetence, failure and general infamy. And even for President Bush that’s a challenge. So, as I say, I’m not saying he’ll really get down into the 20s. I’m saying that if the president is consistently scoring like 32% or 33%, the margin of error built into the polls themselves should eventually spit out an outlier under 30%.
(By the way, if you’re a pollster or statistician and you know some reason why my logic is flawed, just keep it to yourself because it’ll really break my stride in writing this post.)
So, any predictions on when it will come or if it ever will? Is May the month when George W. Bush will cross that Stygian threshold on the path to presidential perdition? June? Never?
