Highs and Lows

The Gallup Polls' latest estimate of George W. Bush's presidential approval rating puts him at 31 percent -- bad but no where near the worst in history.

But Bush is getting closer to another political milestone as the president who has had the broadest range in which Americans at first approve and then broadly disapprove of his administration.

The president with the greatest range in approval is Harry S Truman, who enjoyed 84 percent approval at the close of World War II only to plunge to 23 percent after he dismissed Douglas McArthur as allied commander during the Korean War. That's a range of 64 percentage points.

In second place is the current president's father, George H.W. Bush, who enjoyed an 89 percent approval rating during the first Persian Gulf War only to plunge to 29 percent shortly before his re-election defeat in 1992. That's a range of 60 percentage points.

The current President Bush would need to drop another 9 points for the lowest approval rating in history. But he needs to loose only 6 points to set the record as the president with the broadest variance between high and low approval.