I think we all put too much emphasis on the issue of who caused what and exactly when it occurred. On the other hand, the darn reason for which we are forced into this place where effort must be expended in order to set the record straight, is entirely because our national media absolutely presents economic news to the broad public thru their colored lens of bias.

Here's an easy reference for this exercise:

Recessions and Unemployment Chart

Julia is correct, Reagan indeed had been in office a bit longer, but longer than what and when what was going on? When Reagan begen his tenure, unemployment continued rising, as it had been been since the middle of 1979 - some 18 months prior to Reagan taking office. Unemployment continued to rise until Jan. of 1983, with only a brief rest between recessions. The other notable goings on here is that double recession. The second recession - the longer and deeper recession began only about 1/2 way thru Reagan's first year in office. 

The questions here which the media should focus on are:

What did or didn't Carter and congress, and those before Carter, do to either cause this extremely poor economic period of time?

What did, or didn't Reagan and congress do to help pull us out of it into a remarkable good economic and employment era?  Could he have possibly pulled us out sooner? Would Carter have just made it worse - or better?

Curiosity is a wonderful triat. Our national media is not curious about econonics, nor about enonomic policy cause and effect; rather they only seek to present what they want, when they want in order to make an impression on their audience of their political agenda.

A further look at the chart data clearly indicates that the first Bush had his own recessionary period with rising employment, but that it was in full recovery when Clinton came into office in Jan. of 2003 - inheriting a recovery.

Of course, when Clinton left office, and the second Bush took over in Jan. 2001, the events of 2000 - the historic crash of the dot.com bubble  - were leading us into an immediate recession, rising unemployment and of course, massive tax revenue losses (which would quickly show up as huge federal budget deficits). A reasonable recovery occurred, from 2003- 2007 with federal tax receipts growing at record levels, the stock market reaching historic highs - but with a spotty record in the overall picture.

The questions the media should be asking and discussing are more or less the same as the above.

And again, as Bush is leaving office, a historic crisis had indeed begun a full year prior to his exit., and Obama was taking his spot as we were in full blown recession, huge unemployment losses and the same on the deficit front.

Same questions again. Personally I expect a double dip recession, at best will occur once again - perhaps with unemployment topping out at 13-14%. If that doesn't occur, it will only be because the federal government, under Obama's leadership, decides to spend another couple of $trillion to put people to work on the government payroll (temporarily - until the big doo doo hits the fan.)

If the media were as biased to the right as they are to the left, they would have, and would continue to present everything as the opposite as they did - and will continue to; i.e., Carter left a disaster, Reagan inherited a disaster and created a puring economy, which he left to Bush #1, who screwed it up for a while but got it back on track just in time to hand Clinton a recovery, who ran with it for a while until he left Bush a disaster, which he managed to pull out of but only long enough to leave Obama a disaster, of which what will Obama make of it?

If the media were an honest broker of delivering the news, they would cleary understand that they won't know the answer for what will occur for the next 2-8 years until after it is over, and even then, there will little consensus as to who actually did or didn't do what - it's too big - and it's been coming for a long time. But, that's my personal view - of how I expect that he will do little to build a real lasting economy. The suggestions for how economic data should be presented by the news media is clearly and accurately laid out on the BMI report as Julia linked. Let's hope they read it. 

(;~> gary