Have the initiatives undertaken by the McCain campaign to achieve separation from George W. Bush -- such as his frequent discussion of his POW past and his focus on energy and environmental policies -- achieved their desired goal?

Not according to a new poll from Gallup, which finds that a big majority of Americans is either very or somewhat concerned that McCain would pursue policies too similar to those of President Bush:

Sixty eight percent are concerned about this, the poll finds. Even more tellingly, the survey also finds that 67% of independents are worried about this, too. That's some very fertile ground for the Democratic message to take root in.

Separately, Think Progress has some examples that demonstrate that Americans have good reason to fear this.

Obama Campaign Targeting 14 Red States
In their efforts to expand the playing field, Obama deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand told the Politico that the campaign will be putting resources into 14 states that George W. Bush won in 2004, and will even be targeting states they're unlikely to win, like Wyoming. "If we can register more Democrats, if we can increase the Democratic performance and turnout, maybe we can pick up a congressional seat."

Obama To Give Press Conference Today, McCain In Nevada
Barack Obama will be holding a 3:15 p.m. ET press conference today in his home base of Chicago, following a closed-door policy meeting with business leaders supporting his candidacy. John McCain will be in the swing state of Nevada, with an event in Las Vegas focusing on energy policy.

Hillary Meeting With House Dems Today To Urge Unity
Hillary Clinton is making a Democratic unity tour part of her return to Capitol Hill. Clinton is set to meet today with the House Democratic Caucus, where she will thank her former backers and ask them to work hard on Barack Obama's behalf.

Obama: Dobson "Making Stuff Up"
Barack Obama has responded to James Dobson's condemnation, after Dobson accused Obama of distorting the Bible and having a "fruitcake interpretation" of the law for arguing that religious doctrine should not directly dictate public policy. "I think you'll see that he was just making stuff up, maybe for his own purposes," Obama said.

Utah Congressman Loses Reelection In Primary
Rep. Chris Cannon, a Utah Republican known for his outrageous gaffes over the years, was defeated in his primary last night by a landslide margin. With 100% of precincts reporting, Cannon lost to state political operative Jason Chaffetz by a 60%-40% margin.

San Fran Group Seeks To Name Sewage Plant After Bush
Now this is funny. A group calling itself the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to put an initiative on the ballot to rename the city's sewage treatment plant after President Bush. The group, which was formed at a bar, is calling their proposal "an appropriate honor for a truly unique president."

John McCain is now getting closer to President Bush as he seeks to fix his campaign's cash-flow problems -- but in a sign that he recognizes the problem of Bush's unpopularity, he's not getting too close in public.

McCain and Bush will co-host a big-money fundraiser in Phoenix today, the first time they've been seen together in three months. The catch: TV footage of the two of them together will be kept to a minimum.

A planned mega-fundraiser for the GOP, featuring President Bush and John McCain, has now been scaled back in the face of a daunting problem: Too few people actually wanted to buy tickets.

According to the Phoenix Business Journal, fundraiser set for this Tuesday in the city's convention center failed to sell enough tickets, leading to fears that the anti-Bush protesters might end up outnumbering actual attendees.

The new plan is for the Bush-McCain fundraising effort, which will benefit both the McCain campaign and the RNC, to be held in private residences in the Phoenix area away from media coverage.

Obama foreign policy adviser Susan Rice vowed on MSNBC this morning that Obama will respond forcefully today to President Bush's claim yesterday that Democrats' willingness to negotiate with hostile foreign powers constitutes "appeasement."

"What you're going to hear is a very vigorous response to what was an outrageous, unprecedented, and divisive attack from President Bush yesterday," Rice said.

Of course, Bush never specifically mentioned Obama in his comments. But the Obama team has good reason to forcefully respond, anyway. It puts Obama on the same stage as the Republicans and the President himself, placing him in a back-and-forth over foreign policy with the man that he and John McCain both want to replace -- thus making Hillary and the Democratic Primary recede ever more quickly in the political world's rear-view mirror.

I'm told that Obama's remarks about Bush may come during today's town-hall meeting in Watertown, South Dakota, at noon eastern.

Offering yet another reminder of why his approval rating hovers in the 20s, President Bush yet again hauled out a political tactic that has been failing for the GOP for literally years now, likening the willingness of "some" -- apparently meaning Obama and other Dems -- to negotiate with hostile foreign powers to "appeasement."

Intriguingly, Bush called this willingness to negotiate -- which is supported by majorities of the American people -- something that had been "discredited by history," a claim that requires one to completely forget that the last seven years ever happened.

"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 6Oth anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack," retorted Obama, via spokesperson Bill Burton. "It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel."

Bush made the remarks today while in Israel. The exchange provides an early glimpse of the argument that Obama and McCain are likely to have over foreign policy in the run-up to the general election.

Obama's full response after the jump.

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President Bush has reached a new milestone: He now has the highest disapproval ratings ever of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup poll.

The newest ratings: Approve 28%, Disapprove 69%. The previous high disapproval was held by Harry Truman during the depths of the Korean War in 1952, at 67%.

A new CNN poll shows that for the five-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, President Bush's approval rating is the lowest they've ever polled: 31% Approve, 67% Disapprove.

Looking back in history to the start of the Iraq War, Bush's approval stood at 71% in CNN's polling — meaning he's dropped 40 points as the war has dragged on interminably.

Recently we learned that Dem Senate leaders are contemplating getting rid of their call for withdrawal timelines in order to pass a December bill funding the next leg of the Iraq War.

This has prompted many people to start looking to House Dems to take a stand and draw a line against more funding. House Dems have been making noise about standing firm. But now the White House and GOP campaign to portray Dems as unwilling to fund the troops has kicked into gear, no doubt spooking some Dems, particularly those of the Blue Dog variety.

So what will House Dems do? What's their next step?

Well, today House Dem leader David Obey, who's insisting on withdrawal timelines, was asked this question at a presser. His answer: We won't fund the war without withdrawal dates. Take a look:

Transcript:

QUESTION: Mr. Obey, the rhetoric from the president is just going to get worse as the holidays approach. Are you going to continue to maintain the stance that you have of providing these conditions on war funds if he's to get the money?

OBEY: Of course.

I mean, we have provided the money. I will repeat that 50 times. We have provided the money. The money is not the issue. The issue is that the president is simply refusing to accept the conditions under which the money is provided.

This document says that that's the proper role of Congress. If you look at Article I, Section 8 and Article I, Section 9, they define the authority of the Congress to determine what policy is supposed to be financed and in foreign affairs, and we're simply -- we're simply following that document to the letter.

Pretty tough talk. The question now is whether House Dems will hold the line in the face of the propaganda barrage from the White House and GOPers, who have already started to paint the Dems as unwilling to fund the troops, even though it's the Republicans who are blocking the funding by refusing to support any funding bill that doesn't permit for war to continue forever.

Obey says House Dems will hold the line, and as chair of the Appropriations Committee, Obey is in a good position to help enforce this. We'll see what happens.

Poll headlines like this really are a sign of the times:

George W. Bush's Job Approval Increases to 31%

The new poll, which is from American Research Group, says Bush's numbers have bounced up to 31% from his record low of 25% last month. Bush's big rebound is driven by a drop in public pessimism about the economy, the poll says.

Also driving Bush's comeback is the fact that the number of independents who approve of Bush has jumped to one in four -- up from last month's total of eight percent.

Thirty Senators, led by Jim Webb, have just released a letter they sent to the President. The message: Stop trash-talking about Iran. Key quote:

We are writing to express serious concerns with the provocative statements and actions stemming from your administration with respect to possible U.S. military action in Iran. These comments are counterproductive and undermine efforts to resolve tensions with Iran through diplomacy.

We wish to emphasize that no congressional authority exists for unilateral military action against Iran.

Intrestingly, as The Huffington Post reported today, one Senator who didn't sign the letter is Barack Obama, apparently because he disagrees with the letter's assertion that Kyl-Lieberman "should in no way" be seen as a predicate for war with Iran.

"It will take more than a letter to prevent this administration from using the language contained within the Kyl-Lieberman resolution to justify military action in Iran," Obama spokesman Bill Burton told us. "This requires a legislative answer and Senator Obama intends to propose one."

The full letter, and a full list of signers, after the jump.

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Yet another poll finds that only a quarter of the electorate approves of the job Bush is doing as President. The new American Research Group survey finds Bush's approval rating at 25% -- matching his low point in ARG polling.

Bush's numbers are also sagging (relatively, at least) among Republicans. His approval among GOPers has dropped to 67%, down from 80% last month.

The new Reuters/Zogby poll finds that Bush's approval rating has tumbled to 24% -- a full five points lower than his previous record low of 29% in Zogby polling. Our Official Election Central Calculator tells us that this means that less than one in four now approve of Bush's performance.

As if that weren't bad enough on its own, Atrios points out that this matches Richard Nixon's record low in Gallup polling.

The poll also finds that Congress' approval sits at an abysmal 11% and that both Rudy and Hillary have expanded their national leads.

The new Fox News poll finds that Republicans are twice as likely than Democrats to have prayed for the President:

Republicans (74 percent) are twice as likely as Democrats (37 percent) to have included the president in their prayers, while just over half (52 percent) of independents have prayed for Bush.

Since we're on this topic, the real takeaway here may be that Dems are surprisingly magnanimous towards the President with their prayers. After all, in the same poll only 11% of Dems approved of his performance.

So, if 37% of Dems say they have prayed for Bush, that means that roughly one-forth of Dems disapprove of the President but have nonetheless prayed for him, anyway.

Either way, it's certainly kind of intriguing that Fox polled on whether people are praying for Bush in the first place.

Meanwhile, we have some more fun stuff from this poll right here at The Horse's Mouth.

The new AP/Ipsos poll shows President Bush with his lowest approval rating ever in their surveys. Bush's approval comes in at 31%, with 66% of registered voters disapproving of his performance.

As for Congress, an even broader coalition of voters hate them. Congress' approval rating is a paltry 22%, with 73% disapproval.

(Via Think Progress)

The White House made a mistake that will just feed more of the perceptions about President Bush's problems with the English language — accidentally releasing to the press his prepared remarks before the United Nations, including phonetic pronunciation guides for the president to follow.

A guide was given not only for an admittedly tough one like Kyrgyzstan ("KEYR-geez-stan"), but also for Nicolas Sarkozy ("sar-KO-zee"), which seems pretty simple to pronounce as it is.

It's not at all unusual for a leader to use pronunciation guides, but having them in circulation must be pretty embarrassing. As the Times of London noted, the prepared speech did not include a phonetic guide for the name of Aung San Suu Kyi — and Bush predictably stumbled over that one.

Late Update: White House Press Secretary Dana Perino lambasted a question about the president's apparent difficulties with some of these words. “I think that’s a offensive question," Perino said. "I’m going to just decline to comment on it."

A new quote from President Bush, reportedly done in an interview for an upcoming book from the conservative Regnery Publishing house, tells us more about Bush than it does about Election 2008.

"I will work to see to it that a Republican wins and therefore don't accept the premise that a Democrat will win," Bush said. "I truly think the Republicans will hold the White House."

So Bush works towards an objective, refusing to accept the idea of failure — and then takes this to its logical extreme, truly believing that the opposite scenario simply can't happen.

He really does let his goals define his reality. This explains a lot about the last few years, doesn't it?

Here's another fun detail from Vicente Fox's upcoming autobiography: He says that despite President Bush's cowboy image, the man is actually scared of horses.

Fox tells the story of the two men meeting in Mexico in early 2001, in which he invited Bush to ride a large horse. Bush nervously backed away. "A horse lover can always tell when others don't share our passion," Fox wrote.

Fun fact: Bush's Crawford ranch, purchased in 1999 in order to help create a down-home image for his presidential campaign, does not have any horses.

Jonathan Martin has gotten his hands on an advance copy of that new book out about the Bush presidency, Dead Certain.

The author, Robert Draper, had access to Bush, so it has plenty of bits that tell the story the way the President wants it told. For instance, Bush told Draper that he's cried a lot over the burdens of his office, and we also learn that Bush intends to found a "Freedom Institute" upon leaving office.

Nonetheless, there are also plenty of unflattering parts, too. Courtesy of Jonathan Martin, here are some of the more interesting tidbits and highlights:

• At the 1992 Republican convention, Bush tried to get John McCain to attack Bill Clinton for being a draft-dodger.

• During the 2000 campaign, Bush often cited the case of Texas juvenile offender Johnny Baulkmon as a rehabilitation success story. Baulkmon has since gone on to become a petty criminal, is currently in Texas state prison, and describes Bush as "complete trash, a horrible evil person."

• It was not Karl Rove's decision to go after traditionally Democratic West Virginia's five electoral votes in 2000 — a shrewd choice that swung the election. Instead, it was the idea of a 22-year old aide who had to actively make the case to Rove and company.

• After Bush's disastrous performance at his first debate with John Kerry, Bush aides Karen Hughes and Dan Bartlett forced Bush to sit down and watch himself on tape: "And so Bush at in his Air Force One suite and watched himself on television acting pissed off – and got pissed off at Bartlett for making him watch himself."

• The Saturday before the 2006 election, Bush insisted that that Republicans would only lose 14 House seats — one less than the Democrats needed to take the majority — and Rove assured him he was right. The Democrats ultimately picked up 30 seats.

The National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq -- an advance copy of which we've obtained -- has some good-if-tentative things to say about the surge. For instance, it says that "the steep escalation of rates of violence has been checked for now," adding that al-Qaeda in Iraq has had its capabilities reduced somewhat.

But it also finds that the capabilities of Nouri al-Maliki to govern Iraq have also been badly reduced. The intelligence community writes:

The Iraqi Government will become more precarious over the next six to 12 months because of criticism by other members of the major Shia coalition (the Unified Iraqi Alliance, UIA), Grand Ayatollah Sistani, and other Sunni and Kurdish parties. Divisions between Maliki and the Sadrists have increased, and Shia factions have explored alternative coalitions aimed at constraining Maliki.

How bad is it for Maliki? Our full analysis after the jump.

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We've just obtained a copy of the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq that will be released today to the press at 2:30 P.M. You can read it for yourself right now.

The document is very big news, because it expresses profound pessimism about the ability of the government of Nouri al-Maliki to overcome sectarian differences in the country, suggesting that things are going to get "more precarious" in Iraq in coming months.

The question of whether the Maliki government will be unable to stop things from deteriorating further on the political front will be central to the showdown between the White House and Congress next month over what to do next in Iraq. Senators Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton have already called for Maliki to go.

The news about the NIE was first broken this morning by the New York Times, which cited in its report sources who were familiar with the document.

But we now have obtained a copy of the actual document itself, and you can read key excerpts of it in our TPM Document Collection.

"The Maliki government is implementing plans to expand the Iraqi Army and to increase its overall personnel strength to address critical gaps, but we judge that significant security gains from those programs will take at least six to 12 months, and probably longer, to materialize," says the document, which represents the assessment of government intelligence agencies.

"The IC assesses that the Iraqi Government will become more precarious over the next six to 12 months because of criticism by other members of the major Shia coalition (the Unified Iraqi Alliance, UIA), Grand Ayatollah Sistani, and other Sunni and Kurdish parties. Divisions between Maliki and the Sadrists have increased, and Shia factions have explored alternative coalitions aimed at constraining Maliki."

It continues: "The strains of the security situation and absence of key leaders have stalled internal political debates, slowed national decisionmaking, and increased Maliki’s vulnerability to alternative coalitions."

The document does say that the U.S. military has made some progress in the country on the military front.

"There have been measurable but uneven improvements in Iraq’s security situation since our last National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in January 2007," it says.

"The steep escalation of rates of violence has been checked for now, and overall attack levels across Iraq have fallen during seven of the last nine weeks," it continues. "Coalition forces, working with Iraqi forces, tribal elements, and some Sunni insurgents, have reduced al-Qa’ida in Iraq’s (AQI) capabilities, restricted its freedom of movement, and denied it grassroots support in some areas."

But that assessment is tempered with a dire description of the current situation.

"However, the level of overall violence, including attacks on and casualties among civilians, remains high; Iraq’s sectarian groups remain unreconciled; AQI retains the ability to conduct high-profile attacks; and to date, Iraqi political leaders remain unable to govern effectively," the report says.

Still, the part of the document that is likely to land like a bomb in the middle of the Iraq debate is the bleak assessment of Maliki's chances going forward, because it suggests that the Iraqi government is going to fall short of meeting milestones as the so-called "Washington clock" runs out on Iraq.

Read the document itself here.

More soon.

President Bush's approval might just be bouncing upwards ... to 28%, according to a new poll from American Research Group. His disapproval rating is now 65%, down six points from a month ago in ARG polling. However, this is due to not to any improvement with independents or even Republicans, but from a decline in Democratic disapproval, from a very intense 97% last month to 85% disapproval now. So in other words, this may be what is known in investment as a dead cat bounce, rather than any sort of fundamental improvement.

GOP Senator John Warner and Democrat Carl Levin recently returned from a trip to Iraq, and they've now issued a joint statement on their findings. Their verdict? The surge is having "measurable results."

But before we hear a roar of commentary to the effect that "war critics" say the surge is working, let's also note their other key finding: The prospects for political reconciliation -- the whole point of the surge in the first place -- are bleak indeed.

"While we believe that the `surge' is having measurable results, and has provided a degree of `breathing space' for Iraqi politicians to make the political compromises which are essential for a political solution in Iraq, we are not optimistic about the prospects for those compromises," the two Senators say.

Indeed, underscoring the two Senators' pessimism, they also say that this is the "last chance" for the Iraqi government to solve its political crisis, though they don't say what should happen if the government doesn't solve it (over to you, Atrios).

The two Senators are holding a conference call this afternoon to discuss their trip, and we'll keep you posted on what they say. Full statement after the jump.

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