Congress's Unpopularity

It's now a meme for the Republican right, desperate to find some gleam of optimism from the Bush end-game. Don Surber celebrates 14 percent approval here. Nick Gillespie links, and provokes a Weigel push-back:

Yes, Americans hate Congress. No, they don't hate the Democrats. Not yet.

I'm no fan of Pelosi or Reid, but they don't have the votes to do anything about the prime issue they were elected on. But yes, the grandstanding and cots-mongering was cheesy. I enjoyed this bloggy rant:

I don't quite understand the oohing and aahing about the Senate doing what many of my students do on a routine basis. So a bunch of rich people who only work half the year (true, I only work half the year, but I don't make $165,000 a year) stayed up all night once? So what? Are we supposed to be awed by how seriously the Senate is taking the question of withdrawing troops? Only a group as self-congratulatory and narcissistic as the Senate could believe that such a transparent and empty gesture as an all-nighter could substitute for intelligent and informed discourse.

Congress, of course, never has sky-high ratings, as this piece from Pollster explains. Handy historical  data: