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.