How Obama's approval rating compares to other notable presidents

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Thumbs down.

President Barack Obama's approval rating hit an all-time low recently, and a Pew Research Center chart shows that this is actually fairly common for presidents who have been in the White House for a while.

Some notable presidents represented on the chart saw their approval ratings reach low points before they shot back up to a high, but in many cases, approval ratings sank with the passage of time.

Check it out:

Pew Research Center

George W. Bush and George H. W. Bush saw the biggest gulfs between their high and low, and John F. Kennedy is the only one on the chart who never saw his approval rating dip below 50% (although, because he was assassinated in 1963, he wasn't in office as long as the others).

Comparatively, Obama's numbers don't look so bad. His approval rating hasn't reached the highs that some other presidents have seen, but his lower is still better than many of his predecessors.