WASHINGTON, April 11 (UPI) -- Sentiment toward the president appears heading up, but a poll released Monday indicates Americans are unhappy with Congress and the country at large.
President Bush received a 50 percent approval rating -- the first net positive rating in several weeks -- among respondents to the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. Forty-five percent of respondents gave the president a thumbs down.
Congress, however, received a negative assessment from respondents, continuing the trend throughout much of the past year despite occasional positive approval ratings. Fifty-four percent of respondents said they did not approve of the job the Congress is doing while 38 percent said they did.
The majority of respondents also said they did not like the direction the United States was headed, with nearly three out of five people saying they were not satisfied with the way things were going in the country. The majority of respondents have reported being dissatisfied since the first week of January 2004.
The poll's results were based on telephone interviews conducted April 4-7 with 1,010 U.S. adults, and have an error margin of 3 percentage points.
