Most under reported analysis of our life - well, that's my view.  Dean Baker, of CEPR is an occasional favorite of the MSM media when it comes to economic analysis. His only competitor, in the MSM's view, would be Paul Krugman, or perhaps the cookie monster.

The following was published in, "In These Times," in 2003. Baker, no fan of Conservative views, especially the Bush administration, still maintained the ability to call a duck a duck when he saw one. Baker, who also referred to the Clinton era financial leadership as the worst since Herbert Hoover, had the following to say:

In 2000, President Clinton could legitimately boast of the “best economy in 30 years.” Unemployment was low, wages were rising at all income levels, and the poverty rate was headed downward at a rapid pace. But after President Bush took office in 2001, the economy fell into recession, shedding jobs and causing real wage growth to slow and eventually stop altogether.

A convenient story explains this sharp economic reversal. According to the script, Clinton eliminated the deficit through progressive tax increases and spending restraint. This deficit reduction lowered interest rates and spurred an investment boom, which was the basis for the extraordinary growth of the late ’90s. Then Bush came into office and quickly squandered the surplus with his tax cuts to the rich and military build-up. As a result, the deficit skyrocketed and the economy tanked.

It’s a good story, but the reality is quite different. The Clinton boom was built on three unsustainable bubbles. One of them, the stock bubble, has already burst. The other two bubbles—the dollar bubble and the housing bubble—are still with us. The dollar bubble is starting to deflate, and the housing bubble is perhaps just now reaching its peak. These bubbles created the basis for the 2001 recession and the economy’s continuing period of stagnation.

The basic facts of the economy’s rapid deterioration over the last two years are widely known. After creating an average of more than 3 million jobs a year from 1996 to 2000, the economy has lost more than 2 million jobs since March 2001. This reversal has been associated with a rise in the unemployment rate from an average of 4 percent in 2000 to 6 percent today. The increase among African-Americans has been even larger, rising from 7.6 percent in 2000 to 10.9 percent in April, and larger yet for African-American teens, with the unemployment rate rising from just over 24 percent in 2000 to peaks as high as 35 percent in March. While real wages were growing at close to a 2 percent annual pace in 2000, wage growth has recently fallen to zero for most workers.

The economy’s reversal was associated with a plunge in the stock market. The S&P 500 fell from a peak of more than 1,500 in March 2000, to lows of less than 800 in the past year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq took an even sharper plunge, falling from a peak of more than 5,000 in March 2000 to under 1,200 last summer. Adding to this picture is the reversal in the budget situation. The surplus of $236 billion in 2000 has given way to a deficit that may reach $500 billion in 2003...

In other words  - all of the economic grief that Bush is blamed for up to 2003 (and then some) had almost nothing to do with his policies (tax and war combined); rather it was simply the collapse of the bubble economy just prior to his presidency and the economic fallout from it.

And Dan, as you well know, the media has little interest in the voters ever understanding that black is black. In 2003, according to even radical folks like socialist Bernie Sanders, most of the return to deficits had little to do with the Bush tax cuts or the cost of war. Sanders, attributed approx, 17% of the shift from projected surplus to deficit to the Bush tax cuts and war costs.