Well, the amount of brush on Crawford ranch went down...I'm assuming.

Briefly: yes. You can't.

That said, corporate profits had been fabulous until lately.

2 words

Alito, Roberts

A significant group will love Bush forever for these

Um, hello? Can you say no domestic terrorist attacks in seven years?

PS I have some tiger repelling rocks I'll sell you wholesale...

Any bets on where these numbers will be for Obama in 4 years? I think the unemployment and poverty numbers in particular will be interesting.

Of course, there is some typical cherry-picking going on. We typically look at percentage for poverty and health insurance, not raw numbers, because population changes over time. Also, the use of a nine year gap on the budget side demonstrates the bad faith used to put this stuff together. Is the point to show Clinton's penultimate and Bush's last, or Clinton's last and Obama's first? I'm not sure if anyone is dumb enough to put this together honestly.

The key word being "domestic". In terms of Americans killed by terrorists we're way up. In terms of number of terrorist attacks, we're way up.

How else could we cherry pick? Well, there is one fewer dictator ruling over Iraq.

Home ownership was supposed to be a big one but I think we see where that's going.

The prescription drug plan?
Expanding Nato?

The only statistic I've heard cherry picked (other than "no terrorist attacks") is PEPFAR: AIDS Funding to Africa has tripled since Clinton!

Also, we teach them abstinence now, thus reversing the positive benefit of PEPFAR. BUT! We tripled the money!

Well maybe the number of sadistic regimes in the world has gone done by two?

Just a try...

The increase in absolute numbers in poverty makes me curious about another issue - has there been any recent analysis of welfare reform? I remember in 2000 the things I read were cautiously upbeat (even from sources like Christopher Jencks and the Urban Institute). But obviously that was a very different time. Any recent analyses on this?

What about gas prices! (inflation adjusted)

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/06/price-dip-adjusts-bushs-gas-legacy/

Can you say no domestic terrorist attacks in seven years?

No. The "beltway sniper" terrorist attacks were a bit more than six years ago.

Well the number of black Presidents before Bush was 0 while the number after Bush is 1, so Bush did accomplish that at least.

You need to identify the relevant counterfactual is you want to make the case the Bush was good for the country (incidentally, you also need to do this if you are arguing that he was bad for the country). You can't just say, "the good (bad) numbers go down and the bad (good) ones go up." The question is, what would they have looked like under a different president, say, the "average" president of the past 75 years.

Not saying I have the answers, but simple "unemployment up, Bush bad"-style analysis is a pet peeve of mine (as is "stock market up, Bush good"-style analysis, not that you see much of it any more).

I never understand how the terrorist attacks number is good for Bush. So his record is currently that the most significant terrorist attack in American history occurred under his watch, after a PDB saying it was likely to happen. That's the worst record of any president, ever. That it hasn't happened again -- and whether that's due to Bush or al Qaeda we don't know -- doesn't exactly alter the situation.

States not screwed by FEMA ineptness during Katrina:48 out of 50!

TMW, if you're not a baseball stathead you should know that you're roughly asking for Bush's Value Over Replacement Player (though technically "Replacement Level" does not equal "Average", but your question tracks the same logic).

I suspect that we have massively overpaid for a bad player who has cost this team a lot of wins. Willie Bloomquist could have run this country better, which is a sorry state of affairs.

Thank you President Bush for protecting us for the last seven years. While you were not a perfect president by any means, Islamic terrorists that have vowed (and tried) to destroy us have been thwarted.
My hope is that President-Elect Obama will place the same importance to keeping our families safe.

The year number increased substantially, by eight, from 2001 to 2009.

Can you say no domestic terrorist attacks in seven years?

No. Anthrax. Domestic. It happened.

Um, hello? Can you say no domestic terrorist attacks in seven years?

..

Thank you President Bush for protecting us for the last seven years.

George Bush: fewer than 3500 Americans dead by terrorist attacks. Great statistic. Is this really your selling point for the man?

Who is that better than exactly?

In all seriousness. The aid to Africa is his one good number.

As for another...there are probably now more millionaires in America than there were 8 years ago (maybe even when correcting for inflation), but I don't know this as a fact.

Also, the amount of tax payer money spent investigating possible crimes of the president was probably much higher under Clinton than Bush. How many million did Congress spend investigating Clinton's Christmas card list? That might be seen as a good thing for those small government types.

For the dense people who are defending Bush's legacy:

We did have the Anthrax attacks, the DC sniper, the Virginia Tech incident, the Amish massacre,etc... What's your definition for terrorism is? (According to the Republican dictionary: an act of violence MUST be perpetrated by a muslim, preferably an Arab muslim, to be classified as a terrorist attack)

and for the even denser Brendan: While you were not a perfect president by any means, Islamic terrorists that have vowed (and tried) to destroy us have been thwarted.

Islamic terrorists vowed to destroy us BEFORE Bush took office, the CIA TOLD Bush that they were planning to do so. What was Bush's response? "You covered you ass, no move on" and decided not to do anything about it.

According to your logic, Bush failed, because they did attack on 9/11

Also according to your logic, Clinton was a GREAT president as well, because after jihadist attacked the world trade center on his watch, Clinton kept us save from more jihadist attacks, until Bush took over.

To help your dense mind, I'll also tell you that there WAS another terrorist attack during the Clinton era: Timothy McVey ring a bell? Oh... he was a republican. Can you imagine a racist republican terrorist.

To use a common Republican mantra: "Nobody saw that coming" or "Who could have anticipated that?"

another 'good' number for Bush

the new protections he signed for the Pacific reefs.. the largest protected area signed into law by any president.

Have to give him credit for that.

Even I thought he was laughfably naive in thinking that he could do so with one act, was'nt one of Bin laden stated goals of the 2001 attacks to destroy the U.S. economy? Well, let's access. Since 2001, where has our economy gone? Where was it before 2001? One could make the assessment that Bin Laden did not accomplish his goal, but that he used a willing dupe to do much of his legwork for him. No my friends, I don't think that Bin Laden could have envisioned the amount of damage that we have done to ourselves by letting this un-elected, obtinate, ideologically driven, butthead, roam the halls of the People's House for eight, long, years. Truly sad because we could have seen it coming had enough of just paid attention.

"assess". Sorry