Gallup:

A new Gallup Poll finds Congress' approval rating the lowest it has been since Gallup first tracked public opinion of Congress with this measure in 1974. Just 18% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, while 76% disapprove, according to the August 13-16, 2007, Gallup Poll.

There was a slight interruption in the downward trend in congressional approval ratings at the beginning of this year when party control changed hands from the Republicans to the Democrats following last fall's midterm elections. In January 2007, 35% of Americans approved of Congress, a significant increase from the 21% who approved of Congress in December 2006.

But that "honeymoon" period for the new Democratically controlled Congress was brief, as its job ratings dropped below 30% in March 2007 and have now fallen below where they were just before the Democrats took over.

Harry, Nancy: Nice work. I knew you could do it. I'm proud of you.

Our famously free press will try to spin this as the product of a lack of teh Bipartisan and the need for unity and "they're all the same" but I think there's a much simpler and more basic explanation:

The American people elected the Democrats to do a job. Although there are some Democrats of whom, on a case by case basis, we can be proud, institutionally the Democrats are not doing the job they were elected to do. Primarily Iraq, but much else, which in my IMNSHO comes down to never developing any consistent strategy or even a coherent message for regaining Congress's role as a co-equal branch of government and standing up to Bush. The FISA betrayal--passing a Republican bill, in the dead of night, that actually lets Alberto Gonzales determine what kind of surveillance is legal--is just one example among many. I mean, how deeply can you suck to let that happen?

People get this. Can the Democrats, as a party, get it?

NOTE What this also means to me is that the 2008 Democratic presidential candidate will be extremely vulnerable to an attack from a third party on the right (that would be why the racist appeals to the lizard backbrain are being stoked), and that the courtiers in Versailles on the Potomac will be more than happy to provide one, presumably in the form of a challenger from Vanity08. Democratic true believers should stop calling DFHs splittists, and clean up their own act before it's too late.

UPDATE I must be right because Glenn the Good agrees with me:

When it comes to analyzing the amazingly low ratings for Congress, this is the only aspect that is actually notable. The Democratic Congress commands such little approval for one reason only -- because its own party is so disappointed with its performance.

ince Democrats took over Congress in January, there have been three major attributes characterizing their conduct: (1) a failure to stop or restrict the war in Iraq; (2) a general failure/unwillingness to stop Bush on much of anything else of significance (FISA, a failure to reverse any of the excesses of the GOP Congress, such as the Military Commissions Act, lack of limits on his ability to attack Iran, etc.); and (3) numerous investigations, sometimes flashly but thus far inconsequential. There is no rational way to argue that the numerous investigations (item (3)) are responsible for Congressional unpopularity given how overwhelmingly Americans want Congressional investigations of the administration.

With a President and a Republican Party this deeply unpopular, the only thing the Democrats could really do to harm themselves is to minimize the distinctions between them and Bush, and fail to take a strong stand against the administration. With very rare exception, that is exactly what they have been doing, and that is why they are held in such low esteem. That, of course, has been the predominant critique of Beltway Democratic insiders for quite some time, but this polling data proves this view rather conclusively.

+1. +100. +1000.