I've been thinking things like this for years, especially about a "general loss of confidence." For me the two most confidence-destroying events of the past tw

I've been thinking things like this for years, especially about a "general loss of confidence." For me the two most confidence-destroying events of the past two decades were Iraq and the 2008 financial bailouts/crisis (and the housing bubble that caused it and is still delivering pain). Both of these occurred under the Bush Jr. administration or very shortly after it. For years I've seen Bush Jr. as the worst president of the past 100 years -- far worse than Nixon and Johnson -- and now I'm seeing quite a bit of real world confirmation of this. On the other hand I'm not a huge Obama fan either. He ran as a "change" candidate, but seems to have more or less stayed the course. That's been disastrous.