This last Bad Decade of course, was the BUSH decade. It's clear that Bush's 8 years fast-tracked the destruction of America that will reverberate for... well, probably FOREVER! The terrorists did their thing, but the Bush Presidency, the man and his merry band of stooges, manifested the devastation on all fronts.
Think: 9/11, 2 pointless and endless Wars, WMD, Katrina, tax cuts, pentagon spending, Global War on Terrror, Homeland Security, extra-ordinary rendition, enhanced interrogation, Abu Graib, torture, Guantanamo, Bank crisis, sub-prime mortgages, financial bubble, bank bailout, etc.
Crisis helps define character. Bad things happen to everyone. But the question is how does one handle adversity? Bush and his brain-trust failed miserably. Clearly major fuck-ups. And they enabled other fuck-ups left and right. And still others, who may have known better, stood by silently, or actually helped him fuck up!
Bush truly was the man who "touched it and turned it to shit." What an amazing record of mendacious failure. Notice he isn't mentioned much in our national discourse. The GOP has not recovered from the Bush debacle. America ain't the same. The Bush years are a gaping BLACK HOLE in the fabric of the republic! A wound that isn't healed by a long shot. It's a wound that can only be denied! At our own peril!