Great for Harry--"Give 'em hell, Harry"--both for what he said, and that he is a folkie.

And as far as Bush's popularity--it seems, based on polls (which are of course, just a snapshot), that Bush would lose an election now, depending, of course , on who his opponent was. There's a huge list of gripes people have against him, starting with the Iraq war, which, it's more evident every day, he suckered the US public into supporting by his regime's despicable propaganda campaign. The fact of this campaign is something nobody, here or anywhere else--has ever come up with any facts to refute. He may not have outright lied at the time--just presented only the select evidence which seemed to many to justify the war. But his statement recently that he did not intend to go to war against Iraq is, it's painfully obvious, a blatant lie--and voters recognize that and don't like it.

And of course, the Iraq war is now in the process of blowing up in his face. Nobody is happy that Iraq is descending into civil war--but it shows the incredible lack of competence the Bush regime has in doing anything but destruction that there was virtually no plan for anything but toppling Saddam.

That's only the first item-- in a list that includes the federal government's bungled response to Katrina, the culture of corruption which has flourished under Bush, and the out-of-control spending he has made no attempt to curtail--has not vetoed one spending bill.

Even in areas where I believe his stance is at least close to the right one--the Dubai ports flap and the current illegal immigrant issue--there are enough voters in his own base who are annoyed with him that they might well not come out to support him if a presidential election were held today--always, of course, depending on who his opponent might be. That's his main problem--that his own base is turned off.

Obviously, speculating on "if the election were held today" is still a pointless exercise--since a person's opponent will always determine the extent to which his own base will support him.