They didn't make the decision to let Lehman fail messy.
Bush and the Fed put in place all the necessary policies to fix the mess before leaving office, and they have all worked. Nothing the Dems added since helped, surely. But they didn't cause any of it either.
The drop of $15 trillion in asset values in the panic doubled the downside of a normal cyclical recession, and the proximate cause of that panic was the idiotic Lehman decision. Which was caused by a puritanical hatred of bailouts to the exclusion of any practical sense or responsibility. And no you are not going to get away with pretending that never happened.
"They", (mostly the Democrats, since they were in charge of CONgress, but the Pubbies were in on it too) "didn't put guns to anyone's head". No - "they" did the smart thing, and made it "cool" to be in debt up to your eyeballs (on the QT, of course - got to make your neighbor think he's not keeping up with the Joneses).
Peer pressure and the social dynamism of your local environment is a strange thing. If either half of the married couple gets convinced that A. you're not keeping up with the Joneses, and B. it's safe to keep 6 figures on your credit cards, & and have a 5/95 ARM hanging in the breeze, that married couple is behind the eight-ball.
"They" are STILL trying to convince people to go BACK into debt - even with the double-digit unemployment rate.
Why use a gun when you can con the rubes? They'll do all your work for you...