Moreover, 59 percent said Bush has done more to divide the country, while only 27 percent said Clinton had.

When asked which man was more honest as president, poll respondents were more evenly divided, with the numbers -- 46 percent Clinton to 41 percent Bush -- falling within the poll's margin of error. The same was true for a question on handling national security: 46 percent said Clinton performed better; 42 percent picked Bush.

Clinton was impeached in 1998 over testimony he gave in a deposition about an extramarital sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinksy. He was later aquitted by the Senate.

Many recent polls have put Bush's job approval rating below 35 percent. One, the Harris poll, published last Friday, measured his approval at 29 percent, the first time any survey has put his support below the 30 percent mark. Two other polls published last week put his job approval at 31 percent.

In a separate interview on ABC's "This Week," Laura Bush said her husband's popularity was suffering because the country had been through a difficult year.

We've had a very, very difficult year, starting with the hurricane last September, but already because of the terrorist attack in 2001 and then the war on terror since then," she said. "He's the one that has to make the hard decisions. And, of course, they don't please everyone."

Mrs. Bush complained that when her husband's popularity was high, newspapers did not put that on the front page. Now it was low, they took great delight in highlighting the fact.

Asked if she thought the media had been unfair, Mrs. Bush said: "No, I don't think it's necessarily unfair. I think it's just, you know, I think they may be enjoying this a little bit."

The choice of venue found a couple dozen reporters crammed uncomfortably into the room while a couple dozen others cooled their heels out in the hall.

"I had this wonderful idea that this would be nice and collegial and relaxed," Snow explained of the reasoning behind moving the daily White House "gaggle" -- or informal chat session with reporters -- from the traditional briefing room to his less-accommodating quarters.

"I didn't realize it would be so highly attended," Snow said apologetically, asking for "a little forbearance" on day one of his new job.

"It obviously at this point is just a mess," he said of his first-ever White House media session.

The new spokesman also offered a mea culpa for an unannounced schedule change which found a over 20 hapless journalists arriving at the meeting midstream.

"I apologize. It's just flat my fault," he said, while also blaming the snafu on the "vagaries of the schedule today."

Snow replaces recently-departed press secretary Scott McClellan in a broader White House shakeup. His arrival was part of a broad White House effort to polish its image and to bolster Bush's sinking popularity ratings. On Friday, the president's popularity plummeted into the 20s for the first time.

The Wall Street Journal, in a poll released Friday, reported that only 29 percent of Americans now believe the president is doing a good job, in the most recent of several polls to indicate a slump in public support for the US leader.

For a decade employed by the Fox radio and television networks, Snow is known for his sometimes acerbic commentary and political positions considerably to the right of many other broadcast journalists.

On occasion, he has even quite vocally criticized the policies of his new boss as not sufficiently conservative.

Snow said he had received assurances from the president that he would be at the table during major policy discussions and not merely a mouthpiece for the administration. On Friday, he said that so far that has proved to be the case.

"The president makes the rules, but yes, I've been granted access," he told reporters.

The conservative journalist was a speech writer for Bush's father, former president George H. W. Bush, and anchored the "Fox News Sunday" television program before moving to radio.

Known for his unvarnished commentary, Snow appeared equally candid in many of his answers to reporters Friday.

"I'm not even going to fake it," he said in response to one reporter's question on immigration reform.

And he good-naturedly deflected questions on foreign affairs and changing currency rates, saying he did not want to exceed his knowledge as "the new kid on the block."

"I do not want to set off global tempests," Snow told reporters, "because I frankly just don't know enough on those (topics)."

With respect to proposed improvements in the format of White House briefings, Snow reassured reporters Friday that any changes would be made "in full consultation with you guys."

"They should be rounded up and deported, every single one of them," John Clark of the American Immigration Control Foundation said to a cheering crowd of about two dozen. "Leave them here and in 10 years this will not be the United States of America."

Fifty yards away a similar number of counter-protesters chanted "Minutemen go away, immigrants are here to stay" behind a line of police.

Millions of Latinos have taken to the streets in massive protests to demand greater civil rights in recent weeks. Minutemen founder Jim Gilchrist said such protests underlined the growing threat posed by the estimated 11.5 to 12 million illegal immigrants now in the country.

"They are not assembling to protect their rights. They are assembling to strip us of our rights," Gilchrist said.

Gilchrist and others launched a convoy from Los Angeles on May 3 to push for increased spending and active military involvement on the U.S.-Mexico border, where hundreds of thousands of migrants enter the country illegally each year.

Only a handful of vehicles were in the convoy when it left Los Angeles, a number that Gilchrist said swelled to 50 during the cross-country trek.

The reports came on the same day that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held talks in Washington with his Mexican counterpart General Clemente Ricardo Vega on border issues.

"We have many important things to coordinate with Mexico, for example the border, the war against narcotics trafficking, joint training," said Pentagon spokesman Jeff Gordon.

On Monday Bush is expected to propose measures for tougher border enforcement as part of his comprehensive immigration reform plan, which until now had focused almost entirely on putting in place a guest worker program that could legalize the status of the roughly 11.5 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Friday that the president would offer revisions to his past immigration proposals, but declined, other than in the most general terms, to say what Bush would say in the speech.

"The president will be laying out his comprehensive proposal for immigration reform," said Snow, the president's new chief spokesman.

His remarks Monday will come on the same day the Senate is expected to renew its debate on immigration reform and legalizing the status of illegal immigrants, which has been stalled for more than a month.

Bush will give the speech at 8:00 pm (0000 GMT) Monday from the White House.

"The president at this point is more focused on trying to tackle such issues as immigration," said Snow, who said Bush's decision to make a speech on the issue was influenced at least in part by the legislative schedule.

"The Senate has agreed to take this up," Snow said. "This is crunch time on the issue."

Bush has called for the creation of a temporary guest worker program for illegal immigrants, but popular sentiment is in favor of strengthening border patrols to stem the inflow, some polls have shown.

Senate Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist on Friday gave his backing to the deployment of new troops on the border with Mexico.

"I would support that," Frist told CNN television, when asked about the idea.

Frist said the federal government should use "their resources -- it could be national guard -- to come in to secure those borders."

An official said the Pentagon is one step ahead of him.

"We already have the National Guard on the border working with the governors" of the US states where they are stationed, Jeff Gordon, Pentagon spokesman, told AFP.

"In Arizona, they work with Governor Janet Napolitano and not with the federal government," he said.

Meanwhile, a protest Friday near the Congress building against illegal immigration turned into a shouting match Friday when it met supporters of undocumented workers.

Separated by dozens of police officers, about 50 members of the Minuteman Project yelled, "Go home" to counter-demonstrators who replied in Spanish, "We are here and we're not leaving."

The Minutemen launched last year its own patrols on the US-Mexico border claiming the government was failing to protect its citizens from the influx of illegal Mexican workers.