Phoenix Woman, a poster on a forum I regularly follow (Bare Knucles Politics) made the following points in response to something I had written: When any Republican tries to tell you that "the recession started on Clinton's watch," remind them that: -- When Clinton was in office, the economy was going at such a white-hot pace that economists seriously worried about it "overheating." That's why Greenspan was doing everything he could to cool it down. -- The economy finally started to cool down in the middle of 2000 (remember, moderate "cool-down" was a GOOD thing at this point), but growth was still either neutral or positive right up until March of 2001, two months into Bush's illegal reign -- and about the time most businesspeople started realizing how crazed he was. -- The dot-com bubble did indeed burst on Clinton's watch, but that wasn't Clinton's fault, but simply the law of economic gravity making itself felt. And the dot-com collapse doesn't explain why so many traditional "old-economy" businesses have been going belly-up under Bush's watch. To which I responded: I believe it also should be pointed out that a President should not be measured so much by the problems that occur on his watch, whether they be economic or foreign, but by how he REACTS to those problems. No one can predict disaster. No one can entirely prevent travails. But what a good leader can do is prevent those problems from growing into something even bigger then they originally were. Clinton did this repeatedly, whether it was his handling of economic crisis in Mexico, Russia, and the far east. Or his handling of foreign policy problems in Ireland, the Middle East, or Kosovo. He kept a lid on these problems and managed, in many cases, to improve them. Name one thing that has gotten better since Bush became "President".