NEXT TIME DON'T BOW SO LOW - AT 10:14 A.M. ET:  We noted some grim polling results for the president in our first item this morning.  Now Scott Rasmussen is out with his daily tracker showing a sudden drop for Mr. Obama.  Especially interesting is the spread in Ras's presidential approval index, measuring the gap between those who strongly approve and those who strongly disapprove:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 26% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty percent (40%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -14. That matches the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President (see trends).

Over the past month, the number who Strongly Approve of the President’s performance has generally stayed between 27% and 30% (with one exception in each direction). Today’s drop to 26% matches the lowest level of strong approval yet recorded.

And overall approval?  Some 47% approve of the Obama performance, while 52% disapprove.

This poll was taken after Mr. Obama's deep bow to the Japanese emperor, and after the announcement that the mastermind of 9-11 will be tried in an ordinary federal courtroom in New York.  We cannot know the extent to which these events hurt the president's numbers, but they certainly couldn't have helped.

November 18, 2009