There's a neat chart that shows Bush's approval rating over time and also marks the terror alerts that have been issued.
Very interesting indeed.
Bush Approval Rating
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There's a neat chart that shows Bush's approval rating over time and also marks the terror alerts that have been issued.
Very interesting indeed.
The biggest upticks are associated with terror alerts, yes. However, they are also associated with events -- e.g. capture of Saddam Hussein. Those events would reasonably provoke both an alert and a rise in approval ratings. Given the overall negative trend, it seems unreasonable to me to claim that "Whenever his ratings dip, there's a new terror alert." His ratings are *always* going down. Therefore, any alert issued would be after "his rating dip."
If the numbers go up in the days after an alert, a causal relationship is a reasonable supposition. Not so if the alert follows the rise, or is simultaneous with it. The chart's day-obscuring time-scale makes it impossible to determine the temporal relationship between the events.
What I find most interesting is the fact that ABC/Post numbers are always above the median. Even Fox occasionally drops below it.
That, and noticing that his current numbers are *below* pre-9/11 approval.