The media successfully “borked” W
How? Were they supposed to not report on the biggest recession since the Great Depression? Bush presided over a massive housing bubble - fueled by the easy lending policies for low incomes that he and Rove promoted - and when the bubble burst, the economy tanked. And you’re saying it’s the media’s fault, not Bush’s?
I don’t like the liberal media either, but Reagan had a liberal media too, and that didn’t keep him from being a successful and popular president.
In the second sentence I also said that Bush didn’t help himself at all. He ABSOLUTELY made mistakes, what you outlined chief among them.
By the time that happened though, the media had basically destroyed him over Iraq and waterboarding and “killing civilians” in Afghanistan, and privatizing social security etc...
W didn’t help his reputation much - and in some cases certainly hurt himself - but a lot of the negativity surrounding his reputation came directly from the adversarial media.