Barack Obama is now officially the 44th president of the United States. Which also means that George Bush is no longer the 43rd president of the United States, which means an end to eight years of severe reality-denial syndrome at the highest levels of the executive branch of the United States government. Barack Obama may or may not end up being a great president, but all indications are that it’s really unlikely that he would be anywhere near as terrible as his predecessor.
Barack Obama has his work cut out for him by George Bush, with an economy in shambles, an overstretched military engaged in two countries with no clear goals, and a government filled with incompetent appointees based on political alignment rather than competency. For someone who has taken more than two whole years for vacation out of his eight-year tenure, George Bush has managed to do enough to leave an incredible mess for his successor. President Obama may have to sacrifice much of his own vacation time because of it.