GEORGE BUSH-- THE MOST HATED MAN TO EVER LIVE IN THE WHITE HOUSE

And he's got over a year to increase that hatred, something he appears to work on every single day. The American Research Group has his approval rating down to 25% and sinking. 71% of Americans now disapprove of Bush's job performance. ARG is more leading edge. The Washington Post-ABC News poll lags by about 6-7 weeks. It shows Bush with a 65% disapproval rating. "In polls conducted by the Post or Gallup going back to 1938, only once has a president exceeded that level of public animosity-- and that was Richard M. Nixon, who hit 66 percent four days before he resigned."

Bush has been so down for so long that some advisers maintain it no longer bothers them much. It can even, they say, be liberating. Seeking the best interpretation for the president's predicament, they argue that Bush can do what he thinks is right without regard to political cost, pointing to decisions to send more U.S. troops to Iraq and to commute the sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff.

But the president's unpopularity has left the White House to play mostly defense for the remainder of his term. With his immigration overhaul proposal dead, Bush's principal legislative hopes are to save his No Child Left Behind education program and to fend off attempts to force him to change course in Iraq. The emerging strategy is to play off a Congress that is also deeply unpopular and to look strong by vetoing spending bills.

People have just given up on Bush and his regime. "Public disapproval of Bush is not only broad but deep; 52 percent of Americans 'strongly' disapprove of his performance and 28 percent describe themselves as 'angry.'"

People once thought he would be a nice guy to have a beer with. Now people wish he would have choked on that pretzel in a more serious way. His terrible ratings have endured far longer than Nixon's or his hated father's. More than half the country has disapproved of his job for over two years.

The deep antipathy to Bush has fueled grass-roots support for impeachment. Democrats have resolved not to do that, remembering the division when a Republican Congress impeached Bill Clinton in 1998 for perjury and obstruction of justice to cover up his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky. His public support, though, never fell as far as Bush's. Clinton's worst disapproval rating, 51 percent, came during his first term, and he soared to his highest approval rating days after the Lewinsky scandal broke.