Bush approval rating dips into 60s after nearly a year

US President George Bush was able to keep his job approval rating above 70% two months longer than his father a decade ago, but he slipped to the mid-60s this week amid growing fears about the economy.

The president received ratings of more than 70% after the September 11 terrorist attacks for more than 10 months.

But now he must do his best to avoid his father’s continued slide.

Then-President George HW Bush’s ratings dropped below 50% a year after they shot up in the 1991 Gulf War.

A bit of a fade is inevitable, analysts said. ‘‘One way to put it is that the law of gravity was not repealed,’’ said political scientist David Rohde of Michigan State University.

The younger Bush’s ratings had hovered just above 70% in most polls since the terror attacks.

Now a Newsweek poll shows his job approval at 65% and an Ipsos-Reid poll done for the Cook

Political Report and an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll have him at 67%.

‘‘There has been unrelieved bad news for the past several weeks,’’ said Thomas Riehle, president of Ipsos-Reid Public Affairs, ‘‘so a lot of what has happened has occurred in the weeks from the end of June until today.’’

Republican strategist Rich Galen said the current polls are not that important - but the trend over the next few months will be.

Bush’s ratings soared to 90% and stayed high for an extraordinary period ‘‘because the war on terrorism was going pretty well as far as people could tell,’’ political scientist Rohde said.

‘‘Now things are going worse on the domestic front, particularly with the economy and the stock market,’’ Rohde said. Bush has a cushion, however, he said, adding: ‘‘His ratings now are higher than they would have been if there had not been a September 11.’’