Embattled House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has approval ratings nearly as low as Newt Gingrich when he was the primary lightning rod in Congress, a new poll says.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released this afternoon found that the approval of how Pelosi is doing her job as speaker has dropped from 51 percent in January to 46 percent in March to 39 percent now.

In the new survey, conducted Thursday through Sunday while Pelosi was embroiled in controversy over how much she was told about waterboarding of terrorist suspects, 48 percent of respondents said they disapproved of her performance.

In a news conference on Thursday, she said she had been misled by the CIA -- an accusation that prompted officials of both parties to defend the spy agency and that provoked some angry Republicans to say she should put up proof or shut up and apologize.

Gingrich, the former GOP house speaker during the mid-1990s, has called on Pelosi to resign as speaker. He had his approval rating drop into the low 30 percent and as low as 25 percent in March 1997.

Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee, the former presidential candidate turned talk show host, has found another venue to bash Pelosi.

Who knew he was a poet?

The verses posted on his website begin:

Here's a story about a lady named Nancy
A ruthless politician, but dressed very fancy
Very ambitious, she got herself elected Speaker
But as for keeping secrets, she proved quite a "leaker."

And the poem later refers to the recent controversy:

She sat in briefings and knew about enhanced interrogation;
But claims she wasn't there, and can't give an explanation.
She disparages the CIA and says they are a bunch of liars;
Even the press aren't buying it and they're stoking their fires.
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/pol ... prova.html