he'd probably have been a one termer

Truman was that unpopular, was that as a direct result of the atomic bomb or later in his presidency?

that much

is worse

a president or prime minister was, actually determined by popularity then?

The two things may be linked, but they aren't synchronous.

A president might preside over a very hard time (even doing rather well with difficult circumstances) but because of wider events, that make the factors that people vote on worse, the people just think that they are personally selfishly worsze off and stupidly base their opinion on that.

On the other hand at a time when wider events make the factors improve (irrelevant of presidential policies) the stupid electorate might approve more.

Remember democracy is a great idea, but most of the electorate vote on selfish short sighted issues, the mass electorate dont vote according to deep understanding and analysis. They vote according to popular(i.e. ignorant) opinion (its made ignorant by media)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19ixQtnNd6E

so we don't have to put up with the tired "So, George Bush eh???" jokes on various 'satirical' panel shows on TV.

He dropped out of school at 10.
He raped an HIV positive woman and got off scott free and he was involved in a giant gun running scandal which resulted in him stealing £3 million worth of tax payers money.

Best part. He promised the poor people of South Africa that when he becomes president he will take all the county's money and divided up amongst them.

Oh and he calls himself the next Nelson Mandela.

Bless Jacob Zuma!