RUSH: I guess NBC could no longer ignore the story. I wonder if it’s painful for them to have to report this. I mean it has to have left a mark out there. We’ll get to the details of this. I think it’s much more than just the economy, than the oil spill. I think his personal numbers really are not holding steady. They say they are. The only thing propping him up are his personal numbers, people like him. But everything else is cratering. And yet the likability is up. I wonder if there’s not a Wilder Effect in that number. ‘Two months of oil continuing to gush from a well off the Gulf Coast, as well as an unemployment rate still near 10 percent, have taken a toll on President Barack Obama and his standing with the American public, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. For 
the first time in the survey, more disapprove of his job performance than approve; for the first time in his presidency, more than 60 percent believe the country is on the wrong track; and as he relieves Gen. Stanley McChrystal of his command in Afghanistan, Obama’s scores on being able to handle a crisis and on being decisive have plummeted since last year.
‘Indeed, the poll shows that only 6 percent have a favorable rating of BP. In the history of the NBC News/Journal poll, Saddam Hussein (3 percent), Fidel Castro (3 percent) and Yasser Arafat (4 percent) have had lower favorable scores, and O.J. Simpson (11 percent) and tobacco-maker Philip Morris (15 percent) have had higher ratings,’ than BP. But Obama’s not much better. ‘Only only 33 percent believe the U.S. economy will get better in the next 12 months. That is a seven-point drop since May. … Yet the public continues to blame George W. Bush more for the state of the economy than it does Obama. Pollster Peter Hart says, ‘The Republican Party has a major advantage in the fall, and this poll just reconfirms that.’
The Wall Street Journal reports the poll with this headline: ‘Confidence Waning in Obama, U.S. Outlook — Americans are more pessimistic about the state of the country and less confident in President Barack Obama’s leadership than at any point since Mr. Obama entered the White House, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The survey also shows grave and growing concerns about the Gulf oil spill, with overwhelming majorities of adults favoring stronger regulation of the oil industry and believing that the spill will affect the nation’s economy and environment. Sixty-two percent of adults in the survey feel the country is on the wrong track, the highest level since before the 2008 election. Just one-third think the economy will get better over the next year. … Amid anxiety over the nation’s course, support for Mr. Obama and other incumbents is eroding. For the first time, more people disapprove of Mr. Obama’s job performance than approve. And 57% of voters would prefer to elect a new person to Congress than re-elect their local representatives, the highest share in 18 years.’ Barack Obama is destroying his party, and he’s destroying his own presidency out there.