I disagree Sarah. This is not about skin color and Obama didn't inherit a mess. If you'll remember right, when it looked like Obama was going to receive the nomination over Clinton in 2008, the stock market began a long decline. It continued to decline that summer as Obama gained more momentum and it looked as if he would beat McCain. The month after the election the economy nose-dived.
Why did this happen? Because Obama leans toward socialism. Oh he's not a communist or any thing like that but he does lean towards weak socialism. A free market can't work under socialism so businesses worldwide got nervous and started selling while the market was good. Soon everyone on Wall Street got scared. More selling insued. At the same time no one wanted to buy unless they could get it cheap. So all of these investors had to sell at a loss. The stock market plunged all the way to 6500 in January 2009.
Soon, thereafter employees had to lay workers off to offset their losses because they couldn't afford to have as many workers. Some companies had to close plants down.
It's really rather simple. Socialism doesn't work. It can't work, at least not on a national scale. Socialism worked great for small tribes, such as the Native Americans. They all worked together for the benifit of their close knit family. But it doesn't work on a national scale. It can never work....it leads to genocide, imprisonment, and misery for everyone except the few people at the top and even they live in misery because they know that they may end up being shot on a wall!

"I find it interesting that a discussion of Obama's presidency rarely includes the mess he inherited from Bush, the virulent campaign of hate and lies that was waged (via the internet and emails) to turn the credulous against him"

Really? I don't know how anyone could have missed the idea that he "inherited the mess" considering he has mentioned it on what seems like a weekly basis since coming into office.

I find it interesting that a discussion of Obama's presidency rarely includes the mess he inherited from Bush, the virulent campaign of hate and lies that was waged (via the internet and emails) to turn the credulous against him, and the wall of resistance to any suggestion from him from self-serving politicians in the House and the Senate. The first President of color in America would face a daunting prospect in any case. It seems to me that a lot of "the people" resent his intelligence and would rather have a dunce as President ....

If there ever was a time for a third party movement that time is now....My dream team...Gore-Bloomberg