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The last few months have not been easy for the Bush administration. Not much seems to be going right for our president these days, and the things that have gone wrong went disastrously wrong.

To put the situation in perspective, a recent History News Network informal survey of 415 professional historians found that eight out of 10 historians believe the Bush presidency to be a failure. In fact, 17 percent rated the Bush presidency as the biggest failure since President Richard Nixon’s, which underwent the Watergate scandal, and 12 percent rated it as the worst since President Herbert Hoover’s, which underwent the Great Depression. Another 15 percent of historians rated Bush’s presidency as the worst ever.

What’s mind-boggling about the situation is that Bush has been staying even with Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in national polls. A May 19 Fox News poll showed the two candidates tied at 42 percent each.

It’s disheartening that our president can still have so much support in spite of all the things that have gone wrong during his presidency. To jog your memories, here is a short list of his biggest failures.

First and foremost, there is the ever-deteriorating situation in Iraq, where more and more American soldiers are dying as the chances of a successful democratic transition grow slimmer. As the power transition nears, coalition forces continue to undergo attacks from insurgent militias. We started this war in Iraq – and we have left that country in a mess.

Then there is the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, which has completely tarnished the United States’ reputation in the eyes of the international community (regardless of whether it was just the actions of a few soldiers). It also destroyed the fairy tale of American soldiers as liberators from Saddam-the-tyrant; it reinforced the views of American soldiers as an oppressive occupying force.

There is also the recent Ahmad Chalabi intelligence scandal, where the once-trusted Iraqi ally of the United States has been accused of leaking sensitive U.S. intelligence to Iran that “could get Americans killed,” according to one senior U.S. official. While Chalabi has denied these accusations and said they are part of a CIA plan to discredit him, there is an ongoing investigation into who was giving Chalabi the intelligence in the first place and whether or not he leaked it to Iran.

Iraq isn’t the only place where Bush’s foreign policy has been failing. Let’s not forget about Afghanistan. Due to massive security problems with militia warlords and a new Taliban insurgency, the first round of elections that had been scheduled for June have now been postponed until September. Local militia warlords have overrun the countryside and now dominate political control of the country outside of the capital city. The warlords are so powerful that the transitional government has decided to allow them to run for office and receive official political powers if they resign their commands and disarm.

As bad as things have been going for Bush’s foreign policy, they have been going just as poorly for his domestic policy. He is the first president in 70 years to have experienced a net loss of jobs during his time as president. At the same time, spending has increased massively, especially for someone who claims to be a fiscal conservative.

These increases in spending, along with the president’s massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, are accruing a massive amount of debt as his current federal budget proposal calls for $367 billion of deficit spending. This figure is likely to grow during the coming budget debates in Washington, with some estimates projecting next year’s deficit to be around $477 billion.

Considering all of the negative impacts that these policy failures have been having, it is a wonder they have not created more of a ball and chain for the president. As the presidential campaign has been fairly low-key since the end of the Democratic primaries, American voters may not connect them to the candidates until closer to election time.

With all these problems in mind, it is difficult to foresee Bush maintaining his equal footing with Kerry in the polls for much longer. These domestic and foreign problems are not just chance occurrences; they are a direct result of the Bush administration’s policies and agendas. If the United States doesn’t wake up, we could be in for another long four years.

Bitondo is a third-year political science and history student. E-mail him at mbitondo@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.