To me, Bush was the worst in my time.
Out of curiosity, how many presidents does "your time" encompass?
A few reasons are:
1. He didn’t heed warning about Ben Laden (9/11 could have happened anyway) but we’ll never know. He was warned.
The warning Bush received about al Qaeda was vague and inconclusive and I have yet to hear from anyone beating this particular dead horse what effective course of action they would have recommended on the heels of that intelligence briefing, one of hundreds Bush received since taking office earlier that year. President Clinton, on the other hand, repeatedly ignored, mishandled and neglected al Qaeda, including opportunities to take bin Laden into custody and/or take him out. While bin Laden's capture might not have prevented an attack on the United States, it certainly would have crippled al Qaeda's ability to plan, fund and execute such an operation. Clinton's inept response to every terrorist attack from the World Trade Center bombing to the U.S.S. Cole to the embassies in Kenya are what empowered and encouraged al Qaeda to go further. If any president bears "responsibility" for 9/11, it would rest squarely on the shoulders of Bush's predecessor. Bush is less responsible for 9/11 than FDR was for Pearl Harbor.
2. Sent troops to Iraq starting war which killed something like 8,840 Americans, and ran up a huge debt. That cost wasn't added to his national budget.
Name a war whose commencement had previously been calculated in any president's budget. The financial cost of the war (as with all wars) has certainly been added to the budget and budgeted for since it began, but wars are not exactly predictable expenses in the way wages and administrative overhead costs might be for the federal budget. Of course few government programs of any kind on the domestic front have ever come in on or under budget either so I'm not exactly sure what your expectations of Bush were here. Iraq War casualties for U.S. troops are listed as approximately 4,500 dead and 32,000 wounded. We toppled a hostile dictator who had been a threat to our national interests for many years, removing his ability to acquire, develop or deploy WMDs and liberating 31 million people from a brutally repressive regime in the process. Are you opposed to wars in general or this war in particular? Do you oppose expensive wars verses inexpensive ones? It's hard to tell what you're upset at Bush for that many other presidents haven't done from this section of your post. Would you please elaborate on what you find so objectionable?
3. Took a budget surplus and, during his administration, changed it into a huge debt, for the next president to inherit.
Bush stepped into office inheriting the Clinton recession and was waylaid with 9/11 just seven months into his term. The tech bubble had burst, leaving Bush to inherit a budget which could no longer be balanced by increased revenues from a burgeoning economy. The biggest growth in federal spending during the Bush years was not defense spending, but entitlement and discretionary spending, something that has gone up under virtually every president in modern times (including Clinton). Furthermore, in the 20th Century, virtually no presidents have had a budget surplus of any kind so while Clinton may stand out for that, Bush is no more culpable for "turning it into a huge debt" than all the deficit-only presidents before him. Additionally, if you don't like Bush's debt, you must
deplore Obama's deficits and debt policies.
4. Encouraged the trend to ship more of our jobs overseas. Although, Obama hasn’t done much to correct this.
What encourages American jobs to be shipped overseas is the high cost of doing business in the United States; chiefly a business/industrial climate of high taxes, burdensome regulations and unions run amok. Bush lowered taxes and regulations and didn't expand union power during his tenure. Clinton and Obama both pushed for higher taxes, increased regulations and catered to unions. Clinton signed NAFTA and Obama just ratified the South Korean, Columbian and Panamanian Free Trade Agreements, which demonstrate that,
addressing your concern Bush was did more to retard this trend than the guy before or after him. Of course, you apparently believe globalization is a bad thing for the U.S. whereas I do not and I happen to believe the free trade record of Clinton and Obama are actually checks in their "pros" column.
5. Relaxed regulations on banks and Wall Street, which led to the current housing crisis and damaged the economy.
Again, you need to read some history. The Carter administration enacted policies which coerced lenders to make risky loans to people who can't afford it. President Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Congressional Democrats stonewalled investigations into unsound loan practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the Bush administration. The housing crisis was a bipartisan-created crisis. You can't blame Bush for the bubble bursting any more than you can blame Clinton for the tech bubble bursting under his watch.
6. Although he had authority over a huge nuclear arsenal, he could never say it correctly. It’s “new-cle-er,” dammit!, not “new-que-le-er”. But, that’s just a small personal annoyance I had with him.
I'm not even going to address this one.
Your loosely grounded claims tend to boil down to giving Bush an inordinate amount of credit for an unpopular war and a bad economy while expunging equally or in some cases more culpable presidents from the same.