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It did. we saw the downturn coming on strong at work in late 3Q/4Q 2000, even before 2001. these GDP numbers are all over the place, trying to find out when they are accurate enough to identify the "two consecutive quarters" that define the recession is elusive.

I don't think most americans blame Bush for the recession. The only area where he is politically weak on the economy is showing very little connection/attention to job losses, especially offshoring. At many large companies across america, its all employees are talking about, and Bush is talking about steroid use during the SOTU. Bad move.

It did. we saw the downturn coming on strong at work in late 3Q/4Q 2000, even before 2001.

Don't forget the dotcom bubble burst around April 2000, and it was all very obviously downhill from there. The only reason a lot of people didn't notice it at the time is because the economy had become so disconnected from reality, and had flown so high so fast without a legitimate reason, that even when it was in the process of dropping back to earth like a rock it took almost a year to get back into a semi-normal range. And by that point Bush was president, so everyone incapable of paying attention used the usual false "correlation equals causation" logic in their tiny little brains and decided "It's all Bush's fault."