Presidential failure by the numbers

New numbers from Newsweek: "A bitterly divided electorate gives President George W. Bush an approval rating of only 36 percent in the latest NEWSWEEK poll, matching the low point in his presidency recorded last November."

You want specific numbers? Here are Bush's issue-by-issue approval ratings:

• Supreme Court appointments: 47
• terrorism and homeland security: 44
• the economy: 36
• Iraq: 29
• health care: 28
• energy: 28

I hesitate to draw too many conclusions from such polls. (Go ahead and draw your own.) But these aren't the numbers of a lame duck. They're the numbers of a failure. (And a dangerous one at that.)