Bush Approval Rating is Low but Not Lowest in History Yet

It is no secret to anyone who is paying attention that George Bush is going to end his presidency with one of the lowest approval ratings in history barring any kind of miracle. His approval rating is currently at 28% and it has been stuck there for a while. Believe it or not it is not the lowest in history. The lowest was President Harry Truman who became president upon the death of F.D.R. in April of 1945. He was President until 1953 and when he left office his rating was 22%. This low rating was likely due to the way he handled the Korean war. He fired General Douglas MacArthur, who was a leading general during World War 2 in the Pacific theatre of battle and was a most beloved military figure in the eyes of the American public. Truman and MacArthur had a serious disagreement during the Korean war. The general wanted to use nuclear weapons in Korea and Truman was dead set against it. MacArthur got so boisterous about it that Truman ended up having to relieve him of his command in Korea. As soon as he did Trumans numbers began to sink like a stone.
While George Bush's ratings are not as low as Truman's were when he left office they are lower than his father's numbers were when he left in 1993. George Herbert Walker Bush, who was president from 1989-1993 left office with a 29% approval rating. So you see good old George W. is a chip off the old block. It was the recession in the early 1990's that doomed Bush's father from successfully being re-elected despite his historic success in the Gulf War. George Herbert Walker Bush's foreign policy is widely regarded as brilliant. This due in large part to his chief advisor James Baker who's service in his administration was key. His domestic policies however were regarded as lacking and when the economy went south it robbed him of a second term.
The Current President Bush's approval ratings are tied with another former president who had a hard time in office, President Jimmy Carter. Carter was another one term president who served from 1977-1981. In Jimmy Carter's case it was both his foreign policies and his domestic policies that failed him largely through no fault of his own however. When he was in office the arab oil countries decided to inflict upon the United States their famous oil embargo. It crippled the economy and sent the price of gas skyrocketing. Carter was largely blamed and his numbers started to suffer. Carter was also blamed for the failed attempt to rescue the American Hostages that were being held in the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran. 52 American employees of the embassy were taken hostage in the fall of 1979 by militant Iranian college students. In 1980 Carter ordered The Marines to attempt a rescue of the hostages utilizing various military helecoptors and transport planes. The failed attempt ended disasterously in the middle of the night in the Iranian desert. Carter was blamed for this as well and by the time he left office his ratings were at 28%. The American hostages were finally released by the Iranians unharmed. They did so on the day Carter left office on January 20th, 1981 after 444 days of holding them captive and on the same day Carter gave over his office to incoming President Ronald Reagan.