For a long time, Bush’s poor job approval ratings on domestic issues were more than counter-balanced by his strong approval ratings on international issues. But that formula for political success is falling apart.

First, it was his poll ratings on handling foreign policy that headed south. Then his ratings on handling the situation in Iraq started tanking. And now the last bastion: his ratings on dealing with the war on terrorism. For the first time, a major public poll (NBC News/Wall Street Journal) has Bush’s approval rating on the war against terror below 60 percent–in this case, an underwhelming 56 percent, not far off his overall rating of 51 percent in the poll. Guess folks are losing the thread connecting the increasingly deadly and expensive Iraq occupation with the war against the folks who crashed planes into the twin towers and the Pentagon.

The same poll has his approval rating on foreign policy at just 48 percent. And the new CBS News poll makes it a matched set with a 48 percent approval rating on handling the situation in Iraq. Lo how the might have fallen. With these kind of approval ratings, a Democratic candidate in 2004 would be foolish not to engage Bush in a sharp debate about Americas’ role in the world and safeguarding our national security.

And a look at detailed recent poll results on Iraq shows just how much raw material there is for such a debate. Start with whether the war with Iraq has been worth the costs. CBS News asked this two ways. One-half their sample was asked simply whether “the result of the war with Iraq” was worth loss of American life and other costs. Just 40 percent said the war was worth these costs, compared to 51 percent who said it was not.

The other half of their sample was asked specifically whether “removing Saddam Hussein from power” was worth these costs. This elicits a more positive response, as one would expect, but hardly impressive: 50 percent say removing Hussein was worth costs, while 43 percent say it wasn’t. And, interestingly, the NBC News poll has a very similar question asking whether removing Hussein from power was worth the casualties suffered, but also specifically mentions “the financial cost of the war” (emphasis added). The response here is substantially more negative, with more people (46 percent) saying removing Hussein wasn’t worth the cost, than say it was (45 percent).

Sounds like Democrats don’t want to be shy mentioning how much this occupation is costing the American taxpayer.

The NBC News poll also finds that 60 percent believe the Bush administration underestimated the strength of the Iraqi armed opposition (up from 44 percent in July) and that 56 percent believe we will not find WMD in Iraq (up from 32 percent in May). As for whether we’re safer, 79 percent believe the Iraq war has either not changed or increased the threat of terrorism.

Turning to the question of whether the public feels that the administration, including Bush himself, has been straight with them about Iraq, it is impressive how negative the public is becoming. In the CBS poll, 55 percent say the Bush administration was either hiding important elements of what they knew about WMD in Iraq (40 percent) or mostly lying about what it knew (15 percent). And when the public was asked the same question about Bush himself, the results were almost identical: 53 percent say Bush was either hiding important elements of what he knew about WMD in Iraq (37 percent) or mostly lying about what he knew (16 percent)

Restoring honor and dignity to the White House, eh?

To make matters worse for Bush, these views are even more common among political independents: 60 percent say he was either hiding important elements of what he know or was lying. That’s pretty close to the 71 percent who hold these views among Democrats. And –continuing a pattern we have seen much of lately–both are far away from the mere 19 percent who hold these views among Republican partisans.

A just-released Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) poll allows for further exploration of the public’s current doubts and misgivings about the war in Iraq. For example, according to the PIPA poll, strong majorities now believe the Bush administration should have taken more time before the war to find out whether Iraq had WMD (61 percent to 36 percent) and should have taken more time to try to build international support for going to war (59 percent to 38 percent).

As for the Bush administration’s justifications for going to war when they did, the public overwhelmingly believes (87 percent) that the administration portrayed Iraq as an imminent threat to the US. But, by 58 percent to 40 percent, the public believes that the US did not have strong evidence the US was in imminent danger of being attacked by Iraqi WMD and, by 54 percent to 42 percent, the public believes the US was not, in fact, in danger of attack from Iraqi WMD. No wonder that 63 percent say that Bush, even if he had been told by US intelligence that there was no reliable evidence that Iraq was building WMD or that Iraq was providing support to Al-Quaeda, would have gone to war with Iraq anyway.

And no wonder that only a minority of Americans (42 percent) now see Bush as being “honest and frank”, while the majority (56 percent) profess to sometimes having doubts about what he says. These doubts about his veracity and about the rationale, timing and, of course, results of the war with Iraq have led to what few would have predicted when the US tanks were rolling into Baghdad in early: Bush’s identification with the Iraq war is now a net negative for his re-election prospects. While in September, an earlier PIPA poll showed more voters saying the way Bush has dealt with the Iraq situation would increase their likelihood of voting for him (35 percent to 30 percent who said it would decrease their likelihood), this poll shows the reverse: 42 percent say his handling of Iraq decreases the chance they will vote for him, compared to 35 percent who say it will increase that chance.

No doubt reflecting Bush’s emerging political liabilities on Iraq, the three polls discussed here have Bush with anemic overall approval ratings and doing poorly in a matchup with a generic Democrat. The PIPA poll has him losing handily in a generic matchup, 50 percent to 43 percent (the poll does not include an approval rating). The CBS News poll has him losing 43 percent to 41 percent, when the same poll had him winning by 46 percent to 34 percent just a month ago. The CBS News poll also has his approval rating at just 50 percent, down 4 points since late October and the lowest level measured by CBS since August, 2001, prior to 9-11. Even in the NBC news poll, which has Bush doing slightly better on these indicators, he only leads a generic matchup by 3 points (43 percent to 40 percent) and registers a weak 51 percent on his overall approval rating.

No wonder the Bush team was so happy to see that one quarter of good economic growth. Their plan A (invade Iraq in 2003; coast to victory on national security issue in 2004) is now completely out the window. Wise Democrats won’t let the voters forget just how deceitful and costly that plan A has been; even wiser Democrats will have clear ways of explaining to voters how we can get out of the mess that plan A has created. By the evidence of these polls, voters are ready to listen.