CNN Senior Analyst Jeff Greenfield sniffed out a correlation between Bush’s speeches and his approval numbers.

All through the second term, Bush has been using the “bully pulpit” of the presidency to argue his case on the war in Iraq… And what has happened?

Approval ratings — on Iraq, on terror and on job approval in general — have steadily fallen.

On April 12, 2005, a day when the president gave a speech to military families on terror, Bush’s job approval rating was at 50 percent. Two months later, he made a visit to the National Counterterrorism Center and then gave a nationally televised speech to the nation from Fort Bragg. By month’s end, his job approval was at 45 percent.

Last November, the president visited the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and Elmendorf Air Force Base to talk about terror and Iraq. By year’s end, his job approval was at 41 percent.

So far in 2006, Mr. Bush has given this year six speeches on terror and Iraq, not counting the State of the Union. What has happened? He began the year at 43 percent job approval — in CNN’s latest polling, he’s at 32%…

Every White House loves to argue that its best weapon is the president, connecting directly with the people, and this White House has been relentless in the belief that when the president goes to the country, surrounded by respectful, if not admiring citizens, with the slogan of the day emblazoned in the background, it will be politically effective.

This will come as bad news to new chief of staff Josh Bolten, who recently announced the key to the White House turning things around is trotting Bush out in front of the people.

It’s time for the White House to go on offense and “get our mojo back,” Josh Bolten said Sunday in his first interview since taking over as the president’s chief of staff.

“We’ve taken advice from a lot of folks that we ought to put the president out more in ways that the American people can see what he’s really like,” Bolten said on “Fox News Sunday.”

I got two words for you Josh: social security tour flop.

Anyway, the problem isn’t that the longer Bush is in office, the more we need to see “what he’s really like.” The problem is that we already do.