Facts Don't Speak For Themselves
Suppose, optimistically, that a year from now the current recession is currently over, the economy more or less returned to normal. There are two opposite ways in which recent events can be, and will be, interpreted:
1. The U.S. faced the risk of another Great Depression and was saved from it only by the prompt and courageous action of the Obama admnistration, in the form of stimulus and bailouts.
2. The U.S. was going into a recession, as from time to time it does. The Obama administration used exaggerated rhetoric to misrepresent it as an impending catastrophe in order to justify an extraordinary increase in government spending financed by enormous deficits. The money was mostly spent on the sorts of things politicians like to spend money on. The combined effect of rhetoric and policy made the recession more serious than it would otherwise have been but it still ended, perhaps a little later than it otherwise would have.
Both versions are, I think, consistent with the casual evidence available to most voters. Is there any basis, other than preexisting political preferences, by which voters can choose between them?