Harris Interactive poll shows general public dissatisfaction with all US political figures.

 
Nearly three-quarters of Americans give President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney failing marks for the job they are doing in leading the United States, a poll showed Wednesday.

Seventy-two percent of the 1,003 adults polled by Harris Interactive gave both Bush and Cheney a negative rating for on-the-job performance, meaning they considered the performance of the two leaders to be poor.

The number of Americans who saw the president and vice president in a positive light was around one-third of what it had been for both men shortly after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001, Harris said.

Shortly after September 11, 2001, nearly 90 percent of Americans said Bush was doing a good job at leading the United States compared with 27 percent today, while Cheney enjoyed support from 69 percent of Americans after the attacks compared with 23 percent today.

No key political figure or group was given positive marks in the survey, which was conducted by telephone between October 5 and 8.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came out the best of the failures, with just over half of those polled -- 51 percent -- rating her performance negatively.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates fared slightly worse, with 55 percent of poll respondents viewing him negatively, while 57 percent failed House Speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, for her performance after 10 months on the job.

But scoring worst of all was Congress: nearly four out of five Americans, or 77 percent, saw the work of the two legislative chambers -- the House of Representatives and Senate -- in a negative light.

"People are unhappy with the leading political figures in Washington," Harris Interactive said in a statement released with the poll, which pointed out that "one-third of the US Senate and all of the House of Representatives are up for election" next year.

"An election with this much unhappiness in the minds of the American voter will be interesting to watch," the statement said.

AMSI Net- Middle East Online