I tell you, man, he never should have put Harriet Meirs as his love interest in MI:3

Let alone "War of the Worlds"---what was up with that weird-ass movie?

This has got to hurt:

In the survey of 1,013 adults conducted during the film's first weekend in theaters, 35 percent registered a favorable opinion of Cruise, while 51 percent had an unfavorable opinion.

That's a major turnaround from last year, when Cruise's previous film, "War of the Worlds," opened and his poll ratings were 58 percent favorable and 31 percent unfavorable.

USA Today reported that Cruise's popularity decline with women was especially sharp, slipping from a 56 percent favorable rating in 2005 to 35 percent now.

The poll prompted an immediate and concerted defense by Cruise's supporters, who insisted the actor's popularity and standing as one of Hollywood's most bankable stars was undiminished.

"Tom Cruise is one of the most important stars ever in the motion picture business," Universal Studios President Ron Meyer, a close friend and former agent, told Reuters. "I don't know anybody who has had the consistent success rate that Tom has. And nobody should be counting him out."

Lord knows how much I would pay for the data on the numbers they ran on the Baldwin brothers.

So let me get this straight: Bush's numbers, low 30s; Cruise numbers, low 30s. And that doesn't even get into President Bartlett's or President Mackenzie ThelmaorLouise's numbers.

Something tells me that 50 years from now, the US History text books will have a little sidebar in this here chapter: "In the mid double ohs, it was like the entire nation jumped on the couch." And it will make as much sense to them as flappers and court packing did when I was in High School.

(And yes, the entire point of this post was to google chum "Tom Cruise" and "weird ass" in the same posting.)