Yes, Obama outdid himself and many are pissed he did that. If I was in his position though, I'd have done the same thing. Bernanke saved the economy more so than Obama, but just barely, Bernanke got lucky inflation/deflation didn't bite him in the ass.
All that said, the economy wasn't Obama's fault at all, and it wasn't Bush's entirely. It rested on every person in America. The people buying homes knowing they couldn't afford them, Bush making sure there were tax cuts for home owners (it still exists, and it does in most countries), and financial institutions pushing ARMs, option ARMs, etc. with low teaser rates while finding dumb enough investors to gobble up the housing demand. By 2006-2007, educated investors knew what was coming, take a look into Goldman Sach's records as well as their Abacus project. They were bailing and selling out to their investors, saving their own asses while watching their investors burn. Basically everyone was at fault. Insurance companies (I'm looking at you, AIG) riding high on credit default swaps then getting annihilated, it was everyone.
In the next 4 years the economy will turn around, but it won't be due to any presidential hopeful.
