It's Not Bush's Mess Anymore

President Obama needs to stop complaining that he inherited a mess and realize that the mess is now all his, writes Peggy Noonan. The White House is once again reminding people what dire straits the country was in when Obama's presidency began, but—as the president's free-falling poll numbers prove—that excuse doesn't work any more, Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal.

President Bush—when he had been in office for a shorter time than Obama has been now—truly owned his presidency from the moment he stood atop the rubble of 9/11, Noonan writes. Obama, standing on the rubble of a battered economy, now owns his presidency whether he likes it or not. "Excuse-begging and defensiveness won't work," Noonan writes. "Everyone knows he was handed horror. They want him to fix it." (More President Obama stories.)