2000: The Court Decides It

The vote-count drama alone was historic: the Florida fiasco gripped the public for more than a month and forced the Supreme Court to declare, 5 to 4, Bush the winner. That decision altered the course of history. Bush's reaction to 9/11 led the U.S. into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The costs of those conflicts, his Administration's inept response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster and — in his final months in office — the financial crisis and unprecedented nationalization of the U.S. banking system may send Bush out of the White House with distinction: having the lowest measured approval rating of any modern President.

See pictures of New Orleans 3 years after Hurricane Katrina.

See pictures of the global financial crisis.

• 
• Click to Print

• Find this article at:
• https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1856551_1856544_1856538,00.html