Wampum writes, on the potential of Bush's two terms:

If we add rising interest rates, reduced consumption, lower economic growth, lower productivity growth, higher prices, decreased retirement security, and loss of confidence to a first term record of zero job growth, mounting national debt, and rising income inequality we have a domestic legacy that could last for ages.

It's discouraging to think about the amount of harm that (many|some) of us think has already been done over such a short period of time. I think it's unfeasible that 4 years could have had so much impact. This really makes me think that the "campaign to undermine the media" has been far too successful. Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media?" hasn't gotten much attention lately, but I think that what we're seeing isn't the result of four years, but the result of a few decades worth of coercing the media that people actually pay attention to (TV) into covering politics from a very one-sided perspective via (probably wrongly) blaming the media that people don't pay attention to (anything on paper) for being liberal. A lot of this has been under the radar just by being blamed on the sensationalization of media. We can protest and fight against Bush and modern (non-)conservatism all we want, but until something changes the dynamic of how information is presented to the masses, it won' make a difference. The figurehead is not the problem.