Cool Approval Ratings Chart

JuliusBlog has put together a pretty interesting chart that tracks Bush's approval ratings throughout his presidency (up on the left and down on the right is bad, right?)

What's most interesting about the chart is that it correlates the approval ratings with the three decisive events of Bush's presidency (9/11, Iraq War, capture of Saddam Hussein) as well as all the terror alerts that were announced post-9/11. Julius's findings are as follows:

- Whenever his ratings dip, there's a new terror alert.
- Every terror alert is followed by a slight uptick of Bush approval ratings.
- Whenever there are many unfavorable headlines, there's another alert or announcement (distraction effect).
- As we approach the 2004 elections, the number and frequency of terror alerts keeps growing, to the point that they collapse in the graphic. At the same time, Bush ratings are lower than ever.

I don't know if all of these conclusions are scientifically sound necessarily. For instance, considering Bush's presidency since 9/11 has been virtually one big ratings dip, when else is a terror alert going to occur than during a ratings dip? Also, if you scroll down to the August 3 entry, there's a timeline of negative news stories that happen to have been followed shortly by a terror alert, the premise being that the administration upped the terror alert to divert attention away from the bad news of the day. Again, there's been so much bad news for him, especially over the past few months. But hey, it's still a cool chart. Thanks, Julius!