Americans Rate Obama's Response to Oil Spill as Worse than Bush's to Katrina

In a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, 60% of Americans rated Obama's federal response to the British Petroleum oil spill negatively compared with a 62% negative rating for the Bush administration's response to Katrina two weeks after the hurricane hit.

Unsurprisingly, there was a partisan divide among those that viewed the Obama administration's response negatively and those that did not. Democrats, at 56%, were less critical of the Obama response compared to 74% of Independents and 81% of Republicans that viewed the response negatively. The results ran in the opposite direction for Katrina, as 41% of Republicans viewed the Bush response negatively compared to 64% percent of Independents and 79% of Democrats.

However, partisanship ended when it came to environmental concern regarding the aftermath of the spill as 70% of Republicans and 75% of Democrats and Independents viewed it as a major environmental disaster. Indeed. And the Gulf will take a lot more time, money and effort to restore than New Orleans. My best guess is that the fallout from the spill will wreak at least twice the damage to Obama's poll numbers.