Polls, Alito's first bad night (???) and the Governator

New day, new polls. Oh wait.

CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday afternoon. Two grafs:

Bush's 37 percent overall approval rating was two percentage points below his ranking in an October survey. Both polls had a sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

For the first time, more than half of the public thinks Bush is not honest and trustworthy -- 52 percent to 46 percent.

The story also has some all time lows in a sidebar. Of note:

-Johnson: 35% early August, 1968
-Nixon: 24% mid-July, 1974, and early August, 1974
-Ford: 37% early January, 1975, and late March, 1975
-Carter: 28% late June, 1979
-Reagan: 35% late January, 1983
-George H.W. Bush: 29% late July, 1992
-Clinton: 37% early June, 1993
-George W. Bush: 37%* mid-November, 2005

It's actually quite disheartening to see all those presidents with such low numbers.

Samuel Alito

William Branigin in the Washington Post follows where the Washington Times hath tread:

In a 1985 job application, Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. expressed his strong belief that the Constitution does not protect abortion and stated his opposition to "racial and ethnic quotas."

And David Stout in the New York Times:

In language certain to stoke heated debate at his January confirmation hearings, Mr. Alito, now President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court, also expressed disapproval of Supreme Court decisions while Earl Warren was chief justice, including those that dealt with criminal procedures.

Find Law.com:

Pres. Bush’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Judge Samuel Alito, Jr., wrote in his ‘Personal Qualifications Statement’ when applying to be an Assistant Attorney General under Pres. Ronald Reagan that “I am and always have been a conservative” and that he was “particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed, and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.”

In fairness to the nominee, this letter was written 20 years ago.

REAGAN PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS RE: SAMUEL A. ALITO, JR.

George Bush Presidential Library: Samuel Alito Newly Released Documents

Arnold Schwarzenegger on Jiangguomenwai Street

A nice trip abroad, after a tough election and sagging poll numbers, can be a help. Governor Schwarzenegger can enjoy this, Los Angeles Times:

Only hours after landing, Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, were mobbed by photographers and fans as they tried to make their way across a street in downtown Beijing and into a banquet hall.