George Walker Bush, after a very shaky start during his initial eight months in office, accompanied by declining polls and a declining economy, seemed on his way to greatness as the first president of the twenty-first century for combatting the terrorism that resulted in attacks upon the twin Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. These remarkably successful suicide missions shocked and united the country as had no event since Pearl Harbor back in 1941–not even the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But presidential greatness is a tricky concept. It often exists more in the eye of the beholder than in reality.

For example, FDR's New Deal did not end the Great Depression in the 1930s; only war production during World War II restored the country's economy.