St. Jimmy of Carter - stagflation, gas shortages, unemployment and nuclear accidents.

Lord Ronald Reagan - 21% Prime rate, runaway unemployment and a stock market crash.

LBJ - Inflation

Nixon - Inflation followed by stagflation

Ford - Yet more stagflation

The First Bush only had 4 years so he didn't muck up THAT bad.

This is the legacy of modern conservative thought - the disconnected mixture of warfare, deregulation, and social conservativism is a dismal failure.

I suspect your column will be prescient however - Bush will get the blame as will others by modern "conservatives", but there will be far less self-assessment of conservative philosophy as a failure as well.

I'd be willing to bet that those Bush numbers will be very different by the end of his term! To be fair, Clinton didn't have a war where American lives were being lost, didn't have to deal with complaints about torture, government snooping, or Enron. Just what the heck did Clinton have to deal with anyway? He could spend his whole energy on keeping things running smoothly.

"Bush will get the blame as will others by modern 'conservatives', but there will be far less self-assessment of conservative philosophy as a failure as well."

This is an important point. Even as we speak, "conservatives" are leveling blame on Bush on the basis of his deviation from "conservatism" rather than the obvious failure of "conservatism" writ large. This has underpinned much of the conservative commentary regarding the failure of Monday's vote in the House. It's rather like the rejection of a religion's "false" prophet--the blame lies with him rather than the underlying idiocy of the belief itself.

If the defense of the record of a POTUS is going to be: "he was distracted by what was going on in the world..." I would argue that is a damning defense of said POTUS.

The measure of any POTUS's lustre is the shine of the nation when their administration has left office. I for one see America as dimmed having had Bush as President. In all fairness, however, I would like to hope (for his sake as a human being) that something positive happened during President Bush's tenure. Indeed, setting all snark aside, is there some program, some event that I am missing that Bush can point to and say, "see, I did that!" and have people be happy he did that? I cannot think of anything.

Perhaps it will take years for that positive to surface, but I am nearly certain that this POTUS has done nothing to better our nation. That isn't to say that he hasn't tried, in his own way, to better things. Bush has, by all accounts been active. In trying things. He has "tried" a lot. But to me, his ideas/policies/goals/methods and choice in supporting cast members has be disastrous.

Perhaps the greatest thing that Bush has done is teach us that "everymen" do not make great presidents. They make impulsive, poorly informed ones. The idea that mediocre should be ok for running a nation, like the US, should now be put completely to rest.

And he won't be until late January of 2009.

One could suggest that Bush43 is cooling his heels until the election so that he doesn't do more to scuttle McSame's bid -- after that? Anyone's guess.

Indeed, setting all snark aside, is there some program, some event that I am missing that Bush can point to and say, "see, I did that!" and have people be happy he did that? I cannot think of anything.

In all fairness, I can think of one, but I'm not certain that Bush was behind it. That is the shift of daylight savings, so the clocks go forward earlier and fall back later. I like that.

What a brilliant legacy!

You people conflating evangelical with conservative. We true conservatives deplore Bush. I have since the Medicare drug debacle.

To be fair to Bush, though, the point made earlier about Clinton having nothing serious to deal with is true. He was given a gift by Fate that Reagan killed communism and that Bin Laden waited a year. And when that didn't work, there was always the tactic of ignoring the issue--a la Rwanda and the USS Cole and Embassy bombings.

Bush has been a disaster of a President but there have been one or two times when he actually managed to hit the target. Most likely it was by accident but it happened.

1 – AIDS in Africa. I have to give Bush credit for putting America money and the bully pulpit behind getting more funding and attention for combating the crisis of AIDS in Africa. He ain’t perfect (this is Bush). Cutting family planning programs and stressing abstinence programs over condoms is mind numbingly stupid but it is more than most other world leaders are doing and more than the US has done in a long time.

2 – I’m sure there was something else but I can’t think of it now.

Evangelicals entered into that unholy marriage (a devil's bargain to be sure) long ago. Perhaps it's time to seek an annulment, much like the aristocracy in the medieval period sought of the Pope. In retrospect, that marriage doesn't look so profitable.

I've been trying to decide if your post is intended sarcastically or not. I'm not sure, so I'm going to treat it as if it was intended literally.

I'd be willing to bet that those Bush numbers will be very different by the end of his term!

As in: worse, you mean? More live lost is a guarantee. Lower stock market - could go either way...

To be fair, Clinton didn't have a war where American lives were being lost, didn't have to deal with complaints about torture, government snooping, or Enron.

I'll note that these are all things that bush voluntarily got himself into. Well, the war in Afghanistan was probably unavoidable, though we'll never know what would have happenned with a president who actually read his "bin Laden Determined to Strike" memos. Iraq was purely a war of choice, and a clearly and obviously bad choice at that.

And yup - spying and torture are also problems he got himself into. Would have been pretty easy to deal with if he'd just declined to break the law in the first place. Enron is really the only thing that could be said to be outside of his control, and even that could be tied back to the lax regulation regime that he supported.

Just what the heck did Clinton have to deal with anyway? He could spend his whole energy on keeping things running smoothly.

Well, there was Kosovo. And blowjobgate. You don't think that maybe the general smoothness could just be attributed to having a competent manager?