It seems the orchestrated administration pushback against a half-year of incessant (and largely disingenuous and opportunistic) media and Dem leadership-criticism has won back—at least provisionally, and for the time being—the majority of Bush supporters, the numbers once again approximating the 2004 electoral outcome.  I wrote several times in earlier posts on Bush approval ratings that I believed, looking at the internals, that it was a GOP / conservative mutiny that had brought Bush’s approval ratings to their nadir—and that this was driven more by Bush’s passivity in defending his foreign policy than by what were perceived as foreign policy failures themselves.  That is, conservatives (and, one suspects, many hawkish centrist Democrats) were disappointed with the President’s public willingness to dress down the most vocal and (to their minds) harmful critics of a foreign policy strategy they themselves had so vocally supported.  From Rasmussen:

Monday January 30, 2006–Fifty percent (50%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. Forty-nine percent (49%) disapprove.

The President earns approval from 82% of Republicans, 25% of Democrats, and 41% of those not affiliated with either major political party.

[…]

The President’s highest rating of 2005 was 54% on February 4. His lowest rating was 40% on October 28.

Occasionally, due to the rounding process, the totals for “Strongly” and “Somewhat” Approve or Disapprove presented in the left column do not match the totals presented in the right column.

Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information.

Rasmussen Reports was the nation’s most accurate polling firm during the 2004 Presidential election and the only one to project both Bush and Kerry’s vote total within half a percentage point of the actual outcome.

I confess I extended the necessary portions of the quote in order to include that “most accurate polling firm” bit—but only because I was beginning to get nasty emails from Sean Hannity telling me to “step up the GOP cheerleading a bit, would ya?”

He also requested a more “pointed” juxtaposition of Bill Clinton (his administration / policies / personal failings) with those of the current administration “whenever it seemed remotely instructive.”

Although instead of “juxatposition,” he said, “thingie where its side by side and you compare them and then, once you do, you furrow your eyebrows and, if at all possible, throw in a Reagan reference.”

(h/t Glenn)