What exactly did Bush do to the country? He ran up less debt in 8 years than Obama in 3, so that can't be it. The wars? The economy didn't tank for 5 years of those, and it's not like it got steadily worse for those 5 years.
Seems like W saved us from the Dot Bomb bubble bursting, which cost main street $7.1T in wealth, compared to the ~$5T in wealth lost to the housing bubble bursting. We managed to spend many $billions on NYC and other things in the aftermath of 9/11, and we didn't slide into back into recession after that devastating hit to the heart of our financial center. I suppose you could blame him for Katrina - that cost us $200B.
But you know what? I remember things were going far better than I expected they would at the time of the 2000 election.
Until 2006, when you know who took over the house and senate.
In fact, there's the common theme with those republican presidents you named. All had Democratic Party congresses. And if you think the republicans were obstructionist toward Obama's agenda, those other congresses were equally so toward the republicans.
But hey, Democratic Party congress with Carter and 2 years of Clinton, too. And those were debacles. Same for Obama - he's claiming credit for a lot of job growth since the house went republican, go figure.
I'm not at all happy with much of what Bush did. He spent a lot more than he should. He grew government (gasp!) faster than inflation dictated it should.
