By: Jason EasleyJan. 8th, 2013more from Jason Easley

A new PPP poll has found that Congress is now less popular than lice, but more popular than Lindsey Lohan and meth labs.

According to PPP, Congress now has a 9% approval rating. Since the number has gone so low, the pollster decided to try to measure America’s dislike of Congress but comparing the legislative branch to 26 things and people who are generally disliked.

Congress was less popular than, “root canals (32 for Congress and 56 for the dental procedure), NFL replacement refs (29-56), head lice (19-67), the rock band Nickelback (32-39), colonoscopies (31-58), Washington DC political pundits (34-37), carnies (31-39), traffic jams (34-56), cockroaches (43-45), Donald Trump (42-44), France (37-46), Genghis Khan (37-41), used-car salesmen (32-57), and Brussels sprouts (23-69).”

Congress did manage to be more popular than, “telemarketers (45-35), John Edwards (45-29), the Kardashians (49-36), lobbyists (48-30), North Korea (61-26), the ebola virus (53-25), Lindsay Lohan (45-41), Fidel Castro (54-32), playground bullies (43-38), meth labs (60-21), communism (57-23), and gonorrhea (53-28).

So Congress ranks somewhere below cockroaches, but above the Ebola virus? This seems about right to me. The big surprise here is that Congress remains more popular than meth labs. I would have thought all the publicity meth labs have gotten from Breaking Bad would have pulled them ahead of Congress by now. Apparently, Heisenberg is no match for John Boehner.

There is a serious point to all of this. If you want to know why Obama keeps winning these standoffs with congressional Republicans, part of it has to do with the fact that Congress is ten times as unlikable as President Obama is likable. As much as people personally like this president, they dislike the Congress even more.

It is a bit unfair to lay all of the negative rap that Congress gets on both the House and Senate. It is really the Republican led House of Representatives that has destroyed the reputation of Congress. The Senate leadership on both sides of the aisle have been forced to work together usually to clean up the chaos and disaster that results anytime the House gets involved with any urgent issue.

As Americans we sit back and watch House Republicans light the match and blow up their party on regular basis, but the reputation of Congress has been one of the main casualties of their dysfunction. It may take a generation for the Congress to recover from the damage that House Republicans are doing to it.

There is no way that Congress will ever win any standoff with the president as long as they are less popular than lice and root canals. When you have to look up and aspire to someday be as popular as lice, you’ve got a serious problem.