Bush's approval rating back in the 30s:

After what they have seen and heard over the past few weeks -- events including the news of a Republican congressman's improper correspondence with a teenage page and the recent release of journalist Bob Woodward's unfavorable portrayal of the Bush administration's handling of Iraq - respondents to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, by more than a 2-to-1 ratio, say they have a less favorable impression of the Republicans maintaining control of Congress. What's more, a strong plurality believes the Iraq war is hurting the country's ability to win the war on terrorism, a significant shift from a month ago.

-snip-

In the poll, Bush's job approval rating is at 39 percent among registered voters, a drop of three points since September, when his rating had increased to its highest level in months after he gave a series of speeches on national security leading into the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The three-point drop, however, is within the poll's margin of error of plus-minus 3.5 percentage points.

The survey, which was conducted from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 of 805 registered voters, comes in the wake of unfavorable news for a Republican Party trying to hold onto its majorities in Congress. A week ago, the Bush administration declassified portions of a National Intelligence Estimate, which called the Iraq war a "cause célèbre" for Islamic militants (although the NIE also said that success in Iraq could reduce the number of them wanting to carry on the fight).

Then later that week, reports of journalist Bob Woodward's new book "State of Denial" -- which notes, among other things, that the White House ignored a plea in 2003 for more troops to quell the insurgency there -- dominated the news cycle. Finally, word came out that not only had U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., sent suggestive emails and messages to a male teenage page, but that Republican House leaders had known about some of that correspondence for months. Foley resigned from Congress on Friday and then checked himself into rehab for alcohol abuse.