He's not dumb, or uneducated, but he can not articulate very well. I believe he was incompetent as President due to the Peter Principle at work here. He reached a point in his career where he got a job that required more competencies than he was equipped with. He was also ill advised, as he surrounded himself with cronies, instead of experts. He based many of his decisions on ideology instead of facts (Invading Iraq, and going along with the Neo Cons view of things).
Although there many things that have contributed to the economic mess, much of it was born during the Reagan Administration. Reagan began the deregulation of business in the name of smaller government. Deregulation has resulted in chaos and anarchy in many sectors. Reagan also popularized trickle down theory, ie... Supply Side Economics, which study after study and chart after chart indicates does not work. The money has trickled up to financial companies and overseas. But the facts are ignored or not studied, and bad policies are upholded on ideological principle.
Even though the Democrats were in the majority for the last two years, the Republicans had enough numbers to filibuster or threaten to filibuster, which they did many times. And there is the Presidential veto which Bush only decided to exercised in his last two years. Because of this, it can not be said the Dem's were in charge. the Republicans still had control or a say on most issues. There are many of these misconceptions because too many people fail to understand or educate themselves about government, theories and policies. And too many get and believe information from biased entertainment media masquerading as news or journalism. All in the quest to get ratings and sell advertisements.
Bush's legacy is he was thrown a lot of trouble, that he didn't necessarily create, but he was unable to lessen the trouble, and may have added to it. Or using Bush's favorite sport of baseball as an analogy for his legacy;
Bush came to the plate, bottom of the ninth, two men on, two outs, score tied. Bush earlier had struck out, tripled (did not score) and struck out. Bush singled to first, advancing the runners. Bush, taking too big a lead, gets picked off first base for the third out. We are now in extra innings. I just hope hope the guy in the batters box is not Casey, and that we are not in Mudville.