President Obama - Let’s all be optimistic, but realistic

IT may be in some way comforting to accept that George W Bush’s greatest legacy were the conditions that made the impossible possible and ultimately real.

By being the least popular American president since the start of that country’s civil war almost 150 years ago; by accelerating the adoption of soft banking regulation he made a spectacular contribution to our desperate, frightening economic circumstances.

By needlessly involving America in wars, torture and the appalling, inhuman Guantanamo he pricked the conscience of a nation that, despite all its quirks and falls, aspires to honour liberty and human dignity more than most others.