Gallup reports that six in ten Americans are critical of Bush on the issue of leaks. Plus, “The more closely people are following the issue, the more likely they are to say he did something illegal rather than unethical.” That’s not exactly how Leakgate being reported, but interesting nonetheless.

Cable and network news did a good job of juxtaposing Bush’s statement from October 2003 — “I don’t know of anyone in my administration who has leaked. If somebody did leak classified information, I’d like to know it, and we’ll take the appropriate action” — with his recent admission that he authorized the leaks. A big chunk of the American electorate must’ve seen it.

As Michael Isikoff and Evan Thomas wrote in Newsweek, the clip became “Cable-TV wallpaper.”

The real knee-slapper is reported by Tom Hamburger in today’s Seattle Times:

“I wanted people to see the truth,” Bush said in response to a question from a member of the audience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. “You’re not supposed to talk about classified information and so I declassified the document. I thought it was important for people to get a better sense for why I was saying what I was saying in my speeches.”

“I wanted people to see the truth”? My dear Mr. Alleged President, your Administration can’t handle the truth.

It appears lots of Americans are seeing the truth, however. And if it’s Tuesday, it must be time for new record low Bush approval numbers.

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) — U.S. President George Bush`s approval rating has fallen 3 points to a record low 38 percent in a Washington Post-ABC News poll published Tuesday.

The April 6-9 poll of 1,027 adults nationwide found 47 percent of respondents say they ‘strongly’ disapprove of Bush`s handling of the presidency — more than double the 20 percent who strongly approve.

Karl might want to take notes:

Those asked were divided evenly on terrorism, with 46 percent expressing more confidence in the Democrats and 45 percent trusting Republicans.

The essential E.J. Dionne has a great column on leaks in today’s Washington Post:

What’s amazing about the defenses offered for President Bush in the Valerie Plame leak investigation is that they deal with absolutely everything except the central issue: Did Bush know a lot more about this case than he let on before the 2004 elections?

But first, let’s offer full credit to the Bush spin operation for working so hard and so effectively to change the subject.

Heh.

The president’s defenders want you to think that when it comes to leaking, every president does it. Why should Bush be held to a different standard? Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) told CNN on Sunday that the Bush administration was innocently asking itself, “How do we get the full story out there?”

Besides, since the president can authorize the declassification of anything he chooses to declassify, he can’t be involved in anything untoward. “This was not a leak,” Joseph diGenova, a top Republican lawyer, told the New York Sun’s Josh Gerstein. “This was an authorized disclosure.” Ah, yes, it depends on what the meaning of the word “leak” is. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

I think this ties down why so many Americans are falling away from Bush. They might’ve been fooled by the well-orchestrated, um, misdirection campaigns of the Mighty Right. But now they’ve seen the President caught in a flat-out lie. And not the first one. They might have been bamboozled about what’s happening on the other side of the world in Iraq, but Americans saw the New Orleans debacle in detail on their TVs. By now anyone on Medicare, or with parents or grandparents on Medicare, knows Bush’s prescription drug program is hardly the “accomplishment” he makes it out to be. Etc.

It’s seemed to me all along that the Bush White House was not a real presidential administration, but an ongoing pageant representing an administration. Bush has yet to figure out what a president of the United States actually does. Karl and Karen and the rest of his team are masters at maintaining the illusion of a presidency, and with the deference of the press and support from a loyal Republican majority in Congress it was hard to tell the difference. But now we’re going on six years with no substantive governing leadership coming out of the White House — they’re brilliant at politicking, yes, but they don’t know how to govern — and the consequences are just too plain to ignore. No amount of pageantry and lighting and staging and banners will get them out of the hole they’re in now.

I think the only way Bush could gain back some of the public support he has lost is to actually accomplish something that’s tangible. But I doubt he knows how to do that.

Oh well, back to leaks —

Dana Milbank describes Bush brushing off a question about leaks at Johns Hopkins yesterday:

But then a second-year master’s student asked about “Prosecutor Fitzgerald” and White House leaks to punish a critic. You could practically hear the zipper sealing the president’s lips.

“Yes, no, I, this is, there’s an ongoing legal proceeding which precludes me from talking a lot about the case,” the president finally managed to say. All he could answer, Bush said, was that he declassified a National Intelligence Estimate because “it made sense for people to see the truth.”

That answer neatly encapsulated the White House’s response to the CIA leak imbroglio: No comment and non sequitur.

BTW, it wasn’t that long ago that Bush’s taking an unscripted question would’ve been the top news story. Now it barely gets covered. The boy’s got to learn a new trick to get attention. Juggling? Or maybe he and Dick can put together a ventriloquist act.

The Isikoff-Thomas article cited above is worth taking the time to read. Among other things, it reveals that the Bushies have been a tad inconsistent with their “leaks” and “declassifications.”

Update: See Ezra Klein —

Bush isn’t flailing because this White House is insufficiently politically adept. He’s flailing because the major policies on which he’s staked his presidency are self-destructing. Iraq is a bloodbath, the deficit threatens to swallow the country whole, the Middle East is less stable than ever, economic insecurity is rampant, inequality has risen, the government response to a national disaster was staggeringly incompetent etc, etc. So while any of Lizza’s ideas might result in a temporary bump, that spike would rapidly flatten under the perpetual stream of bad news. Fact is, Bush is proving that presidencies are about something more than communication strategies. This White House was predicated on the belief that policies didn’t matter, only politics did. That’s been disproven, they’ve found themselves unable to fight failure with photo-ops. And this country will be better for it.

Update update: Taylor Marsh —

With President Bush on tape talking about how he wanted to catch the leaker, then admitting he leaked the information himself, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s been going on for years. The president’s people have been covering for the president.

Bush’s legendary “capital” has run out.