President Bush is clearly faltering in the minds of Americans, as evidenced by his clear slides in almost every recent poll. In the latest indication of this trend, Marcus Mabry writes up the results of newly-released Newsweek poll.

Hurricane Katrina claimed her first political casualty Friday. Michael Brown, the head of FEMA, the federal disaster readiness and response agency, was sidelined from the largest disaster relief project in the nation’s history. Brown was recalled to Washington by his boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. But a new NEWSWEEK Poll suggests the post-Katrina political storm may just be rising. And her ultimate casualty could be President George W. Bush.

In Katrina’s wake, the president’s popularity and job-approval ratings have dropped across the board. Only 38 percent of Americans approve of the way Bush is doing his job overall, a record-low for this president in the NEWSWEEK poll. (Fifty-five percent of Americans disapprove of his overall job performance.) And only 28 percent of Americans say they are “satisfied with the way things are going” in the country, down from 36 percent in August and 46 percent in December, after the president’s re-election. This is another record low and two points below the satisfaction level recorded immediately after the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal came to light. Fully two-thirds of Americans are not satisfied with the direction of the country.

The poll also found that 52 percent of Americans don't trust Bush "to make the right decisions during a domestic crisis" and 49 percent rate his leadership as "strong" -- a drop of 14 points since the week before his reelection.

The latest Time magazine poll echoes Newsweek's findings, with President Bush reaching his all-time low approval mark for the poll.

Majorities of those surveyed believe officials at all levels, including the victims themselves, are responsible for what went wrong in the hurricane's aftermath. Almost three quarters (73%) blame state and local officials, 70% blame Federal agencies, such as FEMA, 61% blame President Bush, and 57% blame the victims themselves.

[...]

President Bush's overall approval rating has dropped to 42%, his lowest mark since taking office. And while 36% of respondents said they were satisfied with Bush's explanation of why the government was not able to provide relief to hurricane victims sooner, 57% said they were dissatisfied.

[Update 1:24 PM Pacific]: I seem to have missed the following from the Newsweek poll:

Reflecting the tarnished view of the administration, only 38 percent of registered voters say they would vote for a Republican for Congress if the Congressional elections were held today, while 50 say they would vote for a Democrat.

While the Senate might not be in play in 2006 -- the metrics are simply difficult for the Dems -- with numbers like these, perhaps the House elections across the country will reflect Americans' generally unhappiness with the administration.