upsideguy;1058583095]We have had some good and decent Republican presidents over the years. Unfortunately for all of us, Bush was not one of them. In fact, he was a disaster.
The economy is a system not an event. It is very complex and very slow to respond. There is nothing anyone can do to have an immediate positive impact on an economy. There is generally a two year lag between actions and policies and real outcome. For this reason, presidents often get far too much credit and blame for current economic conditions.... though presidents that have been in office for awhile (two years or more) certainly have their fingerprints on an economy.
Yes, you can improve leading indicators earlier than that, but not really change it. OTH, the elements of collapse were policies put into motion years ago.... not by a democratic congress that took "power" in 2007 (anything they would have done... and they don't get things done very fast, and this congress did not get done much at all, would have only nominal impact in the time allotted. The people responsible for the current mess were in power in the 2004 to 2007 time frame. It was a systemic problem: bad input years ago means bad output today.
The deficit doubled during the Bush years, largely with the unique combination of waging wars and cutting taxes (never before done... do one or the other, please).... there are other problems, most were related to lack of regulation or regulatory enforcement, which Bush can only bear the blame of neglect there.... but to suggest the current government has much to do with the snapshot of the economy shows a lack of understanding of economics. That said, the current government has responsibility for it, and should be accountable to current indicators.
Sorry, but the media did not tell me to bash Bush. In fact, I think the media has been deficient in their criticism of him. He was a very, very bad president. (Though I do actually give him credit for decisive and substantially correct response to the 2008 collapse), during his administration we created the idea of preemptive war, torture, wireless wiretaps, rendition (well, that has been going on, he just took it to a new level), mercenaries (see rendition), staffing the administration with foxes over the hen house (EPA, SEC, Interior... even Defense), he promised us Bin Laden, but never went after him... He was more interested in Iraq than Al Qaeda, and lied us into the CF of a war. He was a bad administrator, bad policy. He was arrogant and a intellectual lightweight. Though I think he was a good guy, he surrounded himself with some very bad people.
Did I mention that I did like his faith-based initiative concept (though it was politicized rather than followed) and the medicare drug-plan, though it was screwed up in implementation.
Sorry, I really doubt Bush will be remembered for too many positives.
