Bush's Approval Rating Lowest Ever Measured in CBS Poll & Prosecutor Not Done With Judith Miller in Today's Details 10/7/05

- This CBS News Poll finds an American public increasingly pessimistic about the economy, the war in Iraq, the overall direction of the country, and the president. Americans' outlook for the economy is the worst it has been in four years. Most expect the price of gas to rise even further in the next few months. A growing number of Americans want U.S. troops to leave Iraq as soon as possible, rather than stay the course, and the highest percentage ever thinks the United States should have stayed out of Iraq. When given a set of options for paying for rebuilding the hurricane-racked Gulf Coast, only one — taking money from the Iraq War — gets majority support. President Bush's overall job approval rating has reached the lowest ever measured in this poll, and evaluations of his handling of Iraq, the economy and even his signature issue, terrorism, are also at all-time lows. More Americans than at any time since he took office think he does not share their priorities.

- Presidential adviser Karl Rove, who has played for the highest stakes in American politics, is taking his biggest gamble yet to avoid possible indictment in the leak of a covert Central Intelligence Agency operative's identity. Rove, 54, volunteered to testify again before a grand jury investigating whether officials in President George W. Bush's administration were the source of the disclosure, said his lawyer, Robert Luskin. A person familiar with the case said Rove didn't get any assurance that he wouldn't be indicted.

- After news emerged that Karl Rove would be appearing again before the grand jury probing Plamegate, The New York Times confirmed late Thursday that a Reuters account that the prosecutor wasn't done with its reporter Judith Miller either. It also appears that the Times' promised full accounting of the Miller role in this drama may be delayed due to the new development. Then, on Friday afternoon, Reuters carried news that Miller had "discovered notes from an earlier conversation she had with Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff and turned them over the prosecutor investigating the leak of a covert CIA operative's identity, legal sources said on Friday.

- Statements by U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and his lawyer, as well as documents in a civil lawsuit, raise questions about when he knew a Texas political committee he founded sent $190,000 in corporate money to the Republican National Committee. The donation is at the center of indictments returned against DeLay on Monday accusing him of conspiracy to violate state election laws, money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. DeLay says nothing about the transaction was illegal. A key point in the case revolves around what DeLay learned at an Oct. 2, 2002, meeting with his political director, Jim Ellis, and what DeLay told Travis County prosecutors this past August. The indictments allege that the DeLay-founded Texans for a Republican Majority sent corporate money that could not be spent in Texas campaigns to the RNC in exchange for $190,000 in noncorporate donations for seven legislative candidates.