For President Bush: If the games bore you, how about this poll?

For a long time now, polls have not been friendly to President George "30%" Bush. He professes to pay them no heed. But just in case he's bored over there in Beijing and is checking out Countdown to Crawford, we present some poll news that might give him some (very) temporary cheer:

On the energy front, an ABC News survey found what the Washington Post characterized as "broad public support for government action." That could translate into new pressure on Congress to push ahead with loosening of restrictions on offshore drilling. The survey found that 63% favor an end to the embargo on new drilling in U.S. coastal waters, the Post reported.

On the other hand, the poll found even stronger support for tougher fuel efficiency standards, an area that has not drawn the same degree of presidential attention, to put it mildly.

But the president may not want to plunge too deeply into the polls.

A survey by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation looked into the question of how New Orleans residents feel they have been treated by Washington nearly three years after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.

It found that 60% thought that rebuilding New Orleans was "not a priority" of the president and Congress, and that although 59% said their lives were "almost back to normal" or "largely back to normal," there were still 41% who said their lives were "still very disrupted" or "still somewhat disrupted."

On second thought, rather than reading the blogs, maybe the president would prefer to keep his focus on the Olympics. (In the photo at top, Bush takes in the U.S.-China basketball game with his wife, his father and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.)

And you?

-- James Gerstenzang

Photo: Jed Jacobsohn / Getty Images