America's faith in George Bush and in his decision to go to war in Iraq has plummeted in the wake of a White House intelligence scandal that went to court this week, according to a new poll.
As the president encountered violent protests in Argentina at the start of his Latin America tour yesterday, a survey published by the Washington Post and ABC News showed that public confidence was eroding rapidly back home.
Nearly six in 10 Americans, 58%, said they had doubts about the president's honesty, a 13% rise in 18 months. Only 32% believed Mr Bush was handling ethical issues well, a significantly worse score than Bill Clinton achieved in his last scandal-besmirched year in office. His overall popularity has plunged to 39%, a new low for the Washington Post/ABC survey.
Mr Bush is no more popular in Argentina, where a protest by several thousand demonstrators turned ugly. In the coastal city of Mar del Plata, where he is attending a regional summit, protesters set fire to a bank, looted stores and battled riot police.
Earlier, the tone was struck by the former football star Diego Maradona, who wore a "Stop Bush" T-shirt to an anti-Bush "counter-summit" that drew some 4,000 protesters from around the world and easily eclipsed the official summit in the public's attention. "I'm proud as an Argentine to repudiate the presence of this human trash, George Bush," said Maradona.
Maradona's anti-Bush sentiment was replicated across a country driven to a near standstill by tens of thousands of people angry at the Iraq war and the US president's push for a region-wide free trade deal. Hospital and subway workers went on strike in Buenos Aires.
The latest popularity poll was published after Lewis "Scooter" Libby became the first White House aide for 130 years to be indicted in office. He appeared in court on Thursday to plead not guilty to five charges of lying to investigators.
At its core, the case concerns the evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction assembled by Mr Libby - at the time the vice-president's chief of staff - and other White House officials to justify the war in Iraq. The president's top political adviser, Karl Rove, is still under investigation for his role in the case, which has refocused attention on the WMD debacle.
According to yesterday's poll, 55% of Americans think the president "intentionally misled the American public" in making the case for war, and 60% now believe it was not worth fighting. Yesterday, Mr Bush was asked whether Mr Rove would keep his job. He refused to discuss the issue on the grounds that the investigation was ongoing.
"I understand the preoccupation with polls," he said. "The way you build credibility with the American people is to set a clear agenda ... and get the job done. And the agenda I am working now is important to the American people."
He pointed to the growth of the US economy, but the poll suggested he was facing scepticism there too. Despite a 3.8% growth rate over the past three months, nearly two-thirds of respondents believed the economy was performing poorly.
Mr Bush is hoping to revive a plan for free trade across the Americas. Yet his economic ideas find few fans in South America, where growing poverty and unemployment are blamed squarely on the free trade policies applied during the past 15 years by regional governments under pressure from the US and the International Monetary Fund.
"We are marching against the creation of a free trade region in the Americas, against the repayment of the foreign debt and against the militarisation of Latin America," said the Argentinian economist Julio Gambina as he arrived with the marchers at the Mar del Plata sports stadium, where Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, addressed the "counter-summit". Mr Chávez, possibly Mr Bush's most vociferous detractor in the western hemisphere, left the American president in no doubt about the opposition to his free trade pact, saying: "Every one of us has brought an a shovel, an undertaker's shovel, because here in Mar del Plata is the tomb of [the pact]."
The 15,000-strong crowd broke out in a roar as Maradona, riding high on his rebirth as Argentina's leading television personality with his own weekly talkshow, embraced Mr Chávez at the microphone and roared: "Argentina has its dignity! Let's throw Bush out of here!".
