Obama's First Test

Journalists are weighing in, as well. Their verdict: Not quite as positive.

Carolyn Lochhead writes in the San Francisco Chronicle: "As bold and brash as his father was cautious, W. rolled the dice at history. And history rolled them back. . . .

"[T]he nation's 43rd president risks joining the likes of Franklin Pierce, his own distant relative, as among the nation's worst presidents, harshly judged in their day and never bathed in the warm afterglow of hindsight.

"Bush leaves to his successor two unfinished wars, Osama bin Laden living in an unstable Pakistan, a U.S. reputation soiled by Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and torture, a deep recession and what is sure to be the first $1 trillion-plus deficit. In short, a gigantic mess, all the bigger for the peace, prosperity and black ink he inherited. . . .

"Big, awful events such as Sept. 11 and Katrina dictated the path of Bush's presidency, but his personality dictated the administration's responses. Famously incurious, proudly anti-intellectual, decisive to the point of impulsive, an extrovert with uncommon energy, a sense of humor and personal charm, Bush was very different from his father, in whose shadow he spent most of his life."

David Lightman writes for McClatchy Newspapers that "the first chief executive with a master's in business administration -- from Harvard, no less, and the son of a president known for his foreign-policy expertise -- is leaving President-elect Barack Obama a nation that's arguably in the worst shape since Herbert Hoover left Franklin Roosevelt the Great Depression and a world in which fascism was on the march 76 years ago. . . .

"While scholars estimate that it takes at least a generation before a president's legacy can be analyzed objectively, many already are unflinching in their assessment of Bush.

"The 43rd president presided over a 'free-for-all in which powerful insiders . . . have played roles as policy entrepreneurs,' said Karen Hult, a presidential expert at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.

"'We can certainly talk about his remarkably sloppy decision-making process. That did have consequences,' added George Edwards, a presidential scholar at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas."

Ben Feller writes for the Associated Press: "Bush's style and temperament are as much his legacy as his decisions. Policy shapes lives, but personality creates indelible memories -- positive and negative."

Blogger Digby summarizes Feller's story this way: Bush is "a self-centered, authoritarian jerk who requires everyone to bow and scrape before him, even though he's an idiot."

The Associated Press also offers up some of the president's more notable malapropisms and mangled statements.