Christian Science Monitor: Bush's "Honest and Straightforward" Rep is Definitely Gone

From today's Christian Science Monitor:

WASHINGTON – When George W. Bush ran for president in 2000, he sought to contrast himself implicitly with President Clinton, promising to restore "honor and integrity" to the White House. The argument seemed to work.

Now, in the public's view, President Bush is sliding into negative territory on that score. For the first time in his presidency, more Americans give Bush a low rating (45 percent) on being "honest and straightforward" than give him a high rating (41 percent), according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

It's not just the recent revelations about top aide Karl Rove - now known to be involved in the imbroglio over the outing of a CIA operative - that have hurt Bush. A range of issues are dampening the president's numbers, from his as-yet-unsuccessful attempt to sell partial privatization of Social Security to increasing public doubts over the decision to go to war in Iraq, says one of the pollsters who conducted the survey.

"We really didn't ask about Rove," says Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster who ran the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. "It's sort of a sense that nothing's going right, and that a lot of his basic tenets that he put out for the second term are coming up a cropper."