There is all this fuss about George W. Bush

being president for eight months when 9/11 happened, and whether he was, or was not, responsible for it.

Herbert Hoover had been in office for fewer than eight months when the stock market crashed in 1929, and many blamed him for it. Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933. In 1938, FDR was into his second term, and the country was worse off than when he first became president, yet FDR escaped blame. It took the start of World War II in 1939 to start an economic turnaround, for which FDR took full credit.

Roland Chambers

Topock, Ariz.