Buyer's remorse

President Bush's approval ratings, as they have for several months, continue to fall. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that Bush's overall job approval rating has plummeted to 43 percent. Even in Alabama, which was solidly in the Republican column in the fall, Bush's job approval rating has fallen by 10 percentage points in the last year.

Why the decline? Much of it likely is attributable to buyer's remorse from independents who, believing Bush was the lesser of two evils, reluctantly voted for him in November but who dislike what they have seen since then.

A recent Gallup poll found that 57 percent of Americans now think the Iraq war wasn't worth fighting. Only 29 percent like how Bush is dealing with Social Security. And a full 82 percent of Americans disliked how Republicans turned the Terri Schiavo situation into a circus. The GOP-led showdown over the nuclear option, which almost two-thirds of Americans oppose, just adds fuel to the fire.

For the last few months, Bush has made the mistake of buying into his own hype, of believing that 51 percent of the vote truly was a national mandate rather than a narrow victory and a call for compromise. A few months into his second term, the reality of what happened in November is creeping back to the surface.