I believe that while a lot of the problems may well have been exacerbated by the Bush administration, the roots of them come from Americans themselves. Others have mentioned some, such as legacy deregulation, the housing debacle (greedy lenders out to make a buck at all costs; greedy Americans trying to buy a house not for the purpose of true home ownership, but to flip in a year or two and stroll off with 50%+ profit), greedy corporations (sending manufacturing overseas, to the detriment of lost American jobs and industrial base), people seeking to pay the least for goods (which leads somewhat into greedy corporations, charging as much as they can while keeping manufacturing costs as low as possible)... None of this can be blamed on the Bush administration... well, with the possible exception of the ballooning housing demand, which was encouraged by the gov't to stave off the last economic slowdown.

Sure, there were tax cuts to corporations and individual investors which increased the budget imbalance. I think those were enormous mistakes, destroying any chance of maintaining a budget balance. If they truly were created to soften an economic slowdown, they should have been phased back in when the economy started taking off again... and they weren't. This led to crazy profiteering, sending expectations through the roof, so when something went marginally sideways ("What? Company X only MET its forecast profits?! They suck! Sell sell sell!") things spun out of control.

Yes, the wars were also a big fiasco, but again, I blame the public for some of this. Americans are big on peaceful solutions to problems, and attempt to force these beliefs on other cultures. This does not always work as intended, at least not in the short term. Take Iraq. For the past 50+ years, Iraqi citizens have lived under some form of dictatorship, ranging from difficult to brutal. They have not enjoyed the rights and freedoms afforded Americans. So when Americans strolled in, kicked Saddam out, and told the Iraqis "Congratulations! You're free! Start your own government! We aren't allowed to tell you how to run your country or anything, though. Just try to make it a democracy, and we'll be happy, and so will you." Iraqis were used to being told how to do things, and were suddenly free to do whatever they chose... and three things happened. Some people rushed to fill the power vacuum with their own selfish agendas. Some people were in shock, with deer-in-the-headlights looks, as they waited for someone to tell them what to do and how to do it. And the remainder tried to carry on the same way they'd been doing for the past 20 years, eking out their existance while trying to keep their heads under the radar.

The first group became the government, and the squabbling is just as bad there as it is here, if not worse (they have more political groups, and have the added "bonus" of having conflicting religious factions, sometimes even among their own political parties). The second group (which apparently seemed to consist of a significant percentage of people who dealt with the country's infrastructure) did nothing, and the country's electrical, water, financial, education, road, and food distribution systems became dysfunctional. And finally, the third group, well, they just kept on hanging on as best they could, running the restaurants, grocery stores, religious centers, and everything else as best they could given the problems due to failures in infrastructure.

Japan and Germany were in similar states of chaos after WWII... And America rolled in, declared martial law, told them what to do and how to do it, and things were done. Any opposition to the occupation was swiftly dealt with militarily. The infrastructure did not languish nearly as long as it has in Iraq. The governments were turned over more rapidly. And these two countries had been hammered a lot harder than Iraq had. So we failed in Iraq, not because of the military victory (or even, for that matter, the reason we went to war in the first place), but in how we handled things after the war was over.

A great article (written in 2003, so you can see where things went wrong) can be found at http://www.usip.org/pubs/peaceworks/pwks49.pdf

Anyway, the "current" generation will usually focus on the negatives more than the positives, because that's just the way people are in this day and age, especially when personally affected by the problems.

My guess is, this recently retired Bush administration will recover to some extent, and come out in the end as one of the many "Despite all these problems, some good was done during these two terms" presidencies.

Short n simple...

THE PRESIDENT GOING AND COMING COULD ASK FOR FORGIVENESS ON BEHALF OF ALL AMERICANS TO THE REST OF THE WORLD AND SHOULD ALSO FORGIVE THIER ENEMIES AROUND THE WORLD.
BECAUSE YOUR FORFATHERS SAID " IN GOD WE TRUST".

Lamin Fofanah Gbla
Tel: (514)-521-1961,Montreal.

However, in other ways, perhaps even more crucial to the current economy than even a President of the United States, Bush probably had little he could do to thwart a meltdown – American consumers have been seeking always lower prices at big box stores providing vast quantities of Chinese exports. Only one outcome is possible when retailers continually pursue such policy and consumers buy into such an alternative ponzi scheme – deflation and recession in the short run, leading to galloping inflation as governments try to inflate out of economic catastrophe.

In this latter development, to be fair, Bush is not to blame any more than any other politician, businessman or consumer. Ultimately, only such companies as Apple might be able to prevail, but only if they maintain a significant investment in R & D.

Thus, yes, I do score Bush an 'F' and do detest his managment and vision(-less) leadership. However, I only hold him accountable for 30% of the downslide. Seventy-percent of the fall I attribute to the rest of us (including myself) for getting suckered into trying to save a buck here and there and thence deprive my neighbors their fair chance to produce a superior product.

I might add that I encourage us all to Buy American when American Is best, but always buy the best instead of the cheapest, and we all win the greatest benefit eventually.