The flow of comments is that Bush was an utter failure, but he wasn't. If we want to get to the root of the problems of the past two years we need to look at the Democratic Congress that had two chances to reform Mae and Mac and turned them down flat because of their myopic reaction to anything Bush suggested. The melt-down didn't need to occur at all had Congress wanted to wean itself away from those slush funds Fannie Mae was spreading around.

As to the Iraq/Afghan wars and Bush's efforts to keep us safe from another 9/11, he was successful. However, he was not successful in vetoing bloated, pork-filled Democratic spending bills.

Washington must be broken. There were 2300 pieces of Democratic pork in the last troop spending bill. So you've had a president held hostage by his desire to fight a war to keep us safe--held hostage by the Democrats who are still living in the eighteenth century, failing to recognize that we are one country, not a bunch of isolated areas fighting for millions of dollars of funding so they can tell their constituents to vote me in perpetually because "look what I've done!"

We laugh when Chavez goes after a bill that would make him president forever, but isn't that what the Democrats on their own behalf have been fostering all along with all this pork? I advocate throwing every member of Congress out, of having term limits for Congress--12 years max. And why was Clinton successful financially? It was greatly due to a conservative Congress led by Newt Gingrich and very little due to Clinton's financial genius.

To get anything done, Clinton recognized he had to change, become more moderate and even conservative in some ways. That's how he got along with Congress, that's how he and Newt left a surplus--that, plus the fact he depleted our military might, failed to kill Bin Laden when he had three chances, failed to conduct his personal and public life in the White House properly. Bush brought back to the office a sense of dignity, chastity, and honor. He rebuilt our military, just as Reagan had to do post-Carter.

Military strength itself is a deterrent and it doesn't come cheap. It is just too bad it's our children and grandchildren who will be paying for all the money thrown around at the financial meltdown and the wars and we're not done spending yet. Obama wants to throw another trillion dollars around, a lot of it in foreign aid, when our infra-structure--schools, roads, airports, and bridges--are crumbling.

— Don White, Windermere, FL