I really can't be mad at George W. Bush because he never should have been president in the first place. He was an unsuccessful business man who was repeatedly financially bailed out by someone, presumably a Saudi Prince. The fault lies with us the electorate for electing him. Wait, he wasn't elected by us, the Supreme Court chose him. His opponent actually got more votes, but was done in by "hanging chads" and aggressiveness by Gays when Ohio was not ready for equality for them.
Granted there are lots of" landmines" in the way of a president becoming great.* For example, in retrospect, Eisenhower looks pretty good. He had positive cash flow twice in his presidential terms. Only Clinton (Bill) has had more. He made some fledgling moves on racial equality. He got the interstate highway system. Perhaps most important of all is that he showed us that sometimes the proper reaction to something is no action.
But then the Eisenhower negatives. He overthrew a duly elected prime minister in Iran for wanting the same oil deal from BP (actually the forerunner of BP) as Egypt got (half the profits). Things have been downhill with Iran ever since. And then there was the Hungarian uprising where we fomented them to revolt and then abandoned them.
But George W. Bush (Bush-43) had two absolute disasters that he plunged us into. One was going to war in the Middle East, something we have been mired in ever since. The other was the Great Recession (It is not PC to use the word depression any more) because he believed that the financial industry is "self correcting" and didn't need regulation. All of a sudden banks, as a result of the lack of regulation, stopped being staid conservative institutions and became go-go organizations. It didn't help that he also got a tax cut during the war that was performed on the cuff. We are still mired in both disasters but have done much, much better on the recovering economy that should be called The Great Recovery.
Many pretend to see no difference between a recession and a depression. Recessions are usually due to large buildup of inventories and recover when inventories work their way down whereas depressions are a collapse of a financial system and are self perpetuating unless something drastic is done.
There are those who say that the Great Depression was not overcome until WW-II with its enforced savings through rationing and lack of goods and a continued low birthrate. In the Great Recession, there is no all consuming distraction such as a World War, which is a great tragedy and certainly not to be recommended. Industry has to work its way out of the Great Recession with minor help by a congress (other than a small "stimulus program") that refused to have a major infrastructure program to help things along.
In fairness to Bush, once he recognized what he had done, he did start some action to save our financial system through the TARP Program, that Obama continued. But a lot of damage had already been done. Though saving the banks has been controversial, it was a key to the Great Recovery we have witnessed by President Obama.
Bush, of course did have some positives, perhaps the most important being Medicare-D (prescription drug coverage), though he left it up to the insurance industry to find a way to pay for it. He did recognize the importance of Hispanics to our culture. "Leave No child Behind" was well intended if much hated by the teaching community.
I will also give Bush credit for going to war in Afghanistan because we had to do something after the 9/11 (2001) attacks, even if it ended badly. President Reagan on the other had "cut and run" from Lebanon after the Marine Barracks massacre and embassy bombings in Lebanon and Kuwait, emboldening the terrorists into believing that, if we were hit hard, we would just withdraw.
George W. Bush's two disasters, unfortunately, greatly outweigh everything else and make him a candidate for the worst president ever, certainly a big step worse than President Hoover.
* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2012/05/land-mines-in-way-of-becoming-great.html
